A bit of good advice from C. H. Spurgeon...

...who was a theologian in Britain about 150 years ago. This quote boosted from here.

“A man who is to do much with men must love them and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living. . . . A man must have a great heart, if he would have a great congregation. His heart should be as capacious as those noble harbors along our coast, which contain sea-room for a fleet. When a man has a large, loving heart, men go to him as ships to a haven and feel at peace when they have anchored under the lee of his friendship. Such a man is hearty in private as well as in public; his blood is not cold and fishy but he is warm as your own fireside. No pride and selfishness chill you when you approach him; he has his doors all open to receive you, and you are home with him at once. Such men I would persuade you to be, every one of you.”

C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students

You needn't be a pastor to put this advice to good use. Almost any daily contact with the public at large will go the better for it.

Rainbow Eucalyptus

What in the world could cause nature to produce this?

The Jawa Report and the Mudville Gazette...

...take down the Wikileaks narrative of the helicopter attack on insurgents. Here and here and here.

We've come too far to let the news media lose this war for us now, as they long to do like their sainted Vietnam War predecessors did.

P. J. O'Rourke on foreign aid, from World Affairs Journal

A hundred years ago, when foreign aid was unthought-of (except as a tribute or bribe), we were a respected and admired country. After a century of philanthropy, everyone hates our guts.

A laser that traces boundaries, physical and drawn

I don't see a way of embedding this clip, so click here:

http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1249932113/Crazy_Weird_Lazer

"That's our neighbor!"

The proprietors of Froynlaven make a discovery on Oscar night:

Yep. Turns out, the guy that lives two doors down won for best cinematography for Avatar. Go fig. We've waved a couple of times, but that's about it. His trash barrels look a lot like ours. However, now when I see his trash barrels, I will see the barrels of someone who has won an Academy Award.

Those are some amazing barrels.

Mark Twain

"A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes."

Farewell to my account at Little Green Footballs

Today I have come to the end of the road with LGF, where I've been a regular commenter since summer of '02. I was canceled for my defense of a notorious cartoon posted by a guest blogger over at Protein Wisdom, where I've been a regular commenter since '02 and a guest blogger since '06. The cartoon post & my response was too much for Charles and several others, and so, once some other commenters brought it to his attention, my account was revoked.

I will keep LGF in my blogroll over there, because it is still one of the best forums out there for conservatives and liberals to meet & interact on even terms. Not being willing to overstate my significance in the grand scheme of things, I would have to say that this is still true even with my absence.

I won't be showing up on any quote-unquote stalker blogs, in case anyone's interested. Which is not at all the same thing as avoiding ex-LGFers, since there are so, so many of them out there.

So, to all lizardoids, fair winds and following seas.



Addendum: Looking more closely, it seems that Charles was unaware until now that I had been posting at PW, and that that by itself would have been the deal-breaker. Kind of strange, since I never hid my comings and goings, posting everywhere under my own nic, and have stuck to pretty much the same political sites for the better part of ten years. So, it looks like the law of averages caught up to me.

I still stand by the rest of this post, though. YMMV.

100 Chinese miners rescued

An unexpected ending to the usual depressing set-piece. Over 100 miners rescued after being trapped for a week in a flooded Chinese mine. A nice change of pace from the usual narrative, from the Land Of Disposable Labor.

In which G. K. Chesterton foresees much of the 20th Century

This is the whole danger of our time. There is a difference between the oppression which has been too common in the past and the oppression which seems only too probable in the future. Oppression in the past, has commonly been an individual matter. The oppressors were as simple as the oppressed, and as lonely. The aristocrat sometimes hated his inferiors; he always hated his equals. The plutocrat was an individualist. But in our time even the plutocrat has become a Socialist. They have science and combination, and may easily inaugurate a much greater tyranny than the world has ever seen.
-- from All Things Considered, 1908

On recent ugly developments in certain blog wars...

Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.
-- Francis Quarles

When the elephants fight, it's the grass that is trampled.
-- African proverb

Contre la Frenglish!

One of the never-ending chores of the Académie Française is policing the French language of all the borrowed English barbarisms that keep sneaking in. It's been going on for decades, as English solidified its hold as the world's language. Now here they are again, voting on French equivalents for Internet Age terms.

Years ago I read of a similar effort, for a similar reason. How were they going to accomplish it? "Avec un task-force."

Health Care Reform: the worms in the apple emerge

MSNBC tries to debunk objections to the HCR law. The headline says "myths", but they're forced to admit that most of them have something to them. "Partially not true". "Mostly false". Squirm baby, squirm...

Update: Over the course of the day, they changed "myths" to "fears". Smart media liberals...

Happy Good Friday

"Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."
-- Frederick Buechner

Via Lent & Beyond.

Another liberal arts major enters the job market...

In 1594, being then seventeen years of age, I finished my courses of philosophy and was struck with the mockery of taking a degree in arts. I therefore thought it more profitable to examine myself and I perceived that I really knew nothing worth knowing. I had only to talk and wrangle and therefore refused the title of master of arts, there being nothing sound or true that I was master of. I turned my thoughts to medicine and learned the emptiness of books. I went abroad and found everywhere the same deep-rooted ignorance.
-- Jan-Baptista Van Helmont, 1648 (a posthumous collection of works), in Jacques Barzun's _From Dawn to Decadence_, 2000

Allan Nairn, Indonesia's special forces, and the Obama administration

Third World countries whose militaries brutalize their own people are a sad but familiar feature of the geopolitical scene. American administrations which deem it necessary to be friendly with such regimes are equally sad, equally familiar. From time to time, the exigencies of international diplomacy enable us to take the high road. Case in point is Indonesia:

Indonesia's National Armed Forces (TNI), especially its thuggish Kopassus Special Forces Command, has a long, sordid human rights record, including political killings and massacres of hundreds of thousands of civilians in East Timor, Aceh, Papua, and elsewhere in the country.

In response to the November 12, 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of over 270 demonstrators in Dili, East Timor's capital, Congress restricted Indonesia's TNI from receiving International Military Education and Training (IMET).

These restrictions were eased in the George W. Bush administration, so that blog post says. Now the Obama administration wants to resume stateside training of a notorious Indonesian special forces unit, the Kopassus. Enter investigative reporter Allan Nairn.

Nairn recently detailed how the Indonesian military's special forces, Kopassus, continued to be involved in illegal activities, including murdering civilians. His report comes at a time when the US is considering renewing direct support for Kopassus, after having banned working with it more than 10 years ago.

US President Barak Obama says that the US military should resume full military to military co-operation with the Indonesian armed forces, the TNI, as a result of their reform. Military contact was broken off in 1996, following the 1991 Dili Massacre in which 300 or more people were murdered by the Indonesian military. Nairn was in Dili during the massacre and was himself seriously beaten by TNI members.

And just today, Indonesian time, his scheduled appearance on that country's TV One was canceled, on a flimsy pretext. No mention if he is in any danger of arrest. If the Obama administration does reverse course and cancel the training arrangements, it might be well for him to get out of Dodge. Searching the White House's website, I don't immediately see anything addressing this issue. The President plans to go to Indonesia and Australia in June, so maybe we'll hear something official by then.

Meanwhile, I'm at a loss as to why this isn't stirring up the Birthers. "Sekrit Muzlim Obama Protects Homeland's Thug Army!!!!" Hope I haven't given them any ideas.

The toughest thing about Employee Appreciation Day?

It's that it has a way of turning into Employee Appreciation Day Planning Committee Appreciation Day. If people don't want to go, they don't want to go. Why browbeat them about it?

Obama signs healthcare reform

One thing I'll concede: After this, no one can say that Obama doesn't have any experience managing or leading anything. This is huge.

Borrow, borrow, borrow...

Look at this colorful graph. Especially, look at which of those colors has been growing, percentage-wise, over the past decade.

"Halal Hippies"

You know political correctness in Sweden is out of control when even National Public Radio is tut-tutting over it.

Pernilla Ouis at the University of Malmo says the deafening silence from most Swedes regarding the Vilks case goes to the heart of the Swedish self-image.

"If we take a strong stance for freedom of expression then we ... could be accused of being racist," says Ouis, who teaches social workers how to work in cross-cultural situations. "We want to protect ourselves, [show] that we are good people, we are not racist, so we don't take that position. So we sacrifice Vilks' freedom of expression for that."


Ouis says that Swedes are very nice people, but also that they are painfully politically correct. She says the PC brigade has acquired a new nickname — "halal hippies" — and she says it applies to almost all Swedish politicians, who tend to have a blind spot to the problems of Islam.

She says halal hippies are critical of one's own society — in her words, have "the white man's guilt" — and they embrace and defend "the Other" so much that they can't see that the other community has oppressive structures of its own.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie

Good flick! Almost had to watch it through my fingers, though. Some of the jams the little fellows got themselves into were painfully familiar. My elementary school kids, who read all the books, really laughed a lot.

An old Bill Mauldin cartoon for you

Seems more appropriate with every passing election...

The signs of the times as presented through children's conversations

Daughter: "Papa, I want to be a wrestler when I grow up."
Me: "...!!!...Women don't wrestle!"
Daughter: "Sure they do! Duh..."
Son: "Women don't wrestle. They box!"
Daughter: "Well, I can box too if I want to."

Idiots

Say you open the newspaper, flip on the tube, or click to your go-to news source. You see the opposition up to something which disgusts you. "Those people are idiots!", you think to yourself.

Question: What would they be like if they weren't idiots?

If your response is along the lines of "Well, then they would stop saying X and doing Y," then all well and good.

But if your response, whether articulated or pre-verbal, is "If they weren't idiots, they would be more like me," then, you're an idiot.

The ACLU: Progressistes sans frontières

Someday, the war in Afghanistan will end. Someday, the Taliban fighters will be reconciled with the government, and peace, uneasy or otherwise, will descend upon this volatile land. Someday, some of the fighters will become intrigued with the land of their erstwhile enemies, the Americans. Some of them will become so intrigued that they emigrate to America, as so many pursuers of liberty and opportunity have done before them. In time, some of these newcomers will become citizens. They will proudly, maybe tearfully, swear the oath of allegiance. They will go to register to become that most privileged class of citizen, voters. We may also suppose that Americans who have run off to join The Jihad will lay down their arms and come home, too.

But! Maybe they will encounter unjust resistance. Maybe some bigoted jurisdiction will have imposed barriers to registering them. Literacy tests. Nit-picky identification requirements. Maybe the new Americans will be disenfranchised. We can't let this happen! Who will help them?

The ACLU, of course. They'll file suit to preserve their rights. They'll force the jurisdictions to obey the equal rights laws. Just as they have done in years gone by.

But before any of this happens, those Taliban fighters must survive the present war. And the ACLU is right there to help with that, too. How? By making sure the Taliban fighters don't get blown up before any of this happens, by demanding compromising disclosures of the Predator drone programs, by concern trolling about legalities in a war they have always been iffy about. Because when you're fighting for truth, justice, and the liberal American way, there's no such thing as overreach.

Idiots. If they had intruded themselves into the Pacific war, the entire Marine Corps would have been jailed.

via Protein Wisdom

Texas textbook standards wrangling

This bit from the fight over whose narrative goes into the state's history textbooks is an example of why we're having this fight in the first place.

It also approved an amendment that deletes a requirement that sociology students “explain how institutional racism is evident in American society.”

Language like that is just an attempt to fit students for liberal hairshirts.

Require them to study if institutional racism is evident in American society? A worthy thought experiment.
How institutional racism was evident in American society? Fine.
How institutional racism is evident in American history? Of course.

But presenting the students with the conclusion, and requiring them to argue their way to it, is underhanded. I fully understand the feelings of the parents who refuse to let their children be indicted with that kind of original sin.

Playing with fire, or putting out the fire

Allan Bloom would weep, at the enfeeblement of spirit that this living arrangement evidences.

Mixed-gender dorm rooms are gaining acceptance

Their room, which shares a tiny bathroom with two men next door, has the usual collegiate trappings of beer bottles and political posters. The only unusual sight is women's clothes in one closet and men's in another.

The pair seem to have a warm brotherly-sisterly friendship and, while they try to be respectful, they say they are not inhibited about being in underwear or even nude while changing clothes in the room. They insist their living situation does not interfere with romantic relationships with other people. And although they have not been teased on campus, they face curious questions from relatives and friends.

"I definitely think it's generational," said Eland, 20, of Seattle. "For my grandparents, living with someone of the opposite sex, if he is not your serious boyfriend or husband or brother, would be very strange."

Men and women are equal because they are not different anymore.
-- Eric Hoffer

Filth masquerading as news, from a toad masquerading as a man

A couple of years ago, about two hours up the interstate from me, a young hiker was abducted and murdered. Her killer was caught, convicted & is serving life.

Now Larry Flynt wants to get the crime scene photos of her, to run in his publication under the guise of a news story. The courts and the GBI are fighting the porn king's FOI requests, but may not succeed. If they lose, I hope some intern goes into the evidence files and burns the photos in the dumpster.

Moderate Islam: Western Ally or Western Myth?

Daniel Pipes and Wafa Sultan debated the issue at a synagogue in Canada, in a gathering organized by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. Sultan led off with a zinger:

I am used to debating with a Muslim imam, not with a dear friend like Dr. Pipes. The best part of our debate is, I know for sure at the end of this debate, he's not going to call me kaffir (unbeliever) or to issue a fatwa against my life.

Pipes:

It’s incumbent upon us to help the moderates, those who want to integrate, who want to be patriotic citizens, who want to live under our system, our beliefs and customs, rather than according to the Shari’a.... We need to encourage them, we need to fund them. We need to help them, not the Islamists.

Sultan:

So what is the essence of Islam? The underlying foundation of Islam is to rule the world and submit it under Islamic Shari’a. [...] Many in the West argue that these accounts should be viewed in the context of history, that life then was cruel and that the Bible is also rooted in violent stories.... While other religions have had their share of violent history, theirs are merely history stories that happened in the past. On the other hand, Islam is a doctrine codified in Shari’a law for Muslims to follow at all times.

So who won? It doesn't say, although the Tribune gives the lion's share of the quotes to Sultan. Including another zinger:

Asked, “What is the closest, best role model of the Islamic state?” Dr. Sultan drew laughter and applause when she replied, “I say France. I mean it, because a year ago I gave a speech in France and I thought I was in the Gaza Strip. Seventy-five per cent of my audience were Muslims, shouting and cursing and going crazy, so let’s hope France will be the best role model.”

Adam Smith's On The Wealth Of Nations

On this date in 1776, Adam Smith's On The Wealth Of Nations was published. Back during the days of the free market in our nation, it was a very influential book. If it's too forbidding a tome for you, you may enjoy P.J. O'Rourke's introduction to it, from a few years ago. Here are some fair-use quotes:


Leftist critics of free markets assume that there is a fraudulent aspect to capitalism. They're right. We tricked the feudal powers into setting us free, and we remained free by continuing to bamboozle them. We used chicanery and sharp dealing to found our cities, become rich bourgeoisie, and supply ourselves with creature comforts. We left the barbarian aristocrats in their drafty castles throwing chicken bones on the floor.
----------
Later economists, such as, in the early nineteenth century, J. B. Say, felt that Smith undervalued the economic contributions of service. And he did. The eighteenth century had servants, not a service economy. It was hard for a man of that era to believe that the semi-inebriated footman and the blowsy scullery maid would evolve into, well, the stoned pizza delivery boy and the girl behind the checkout counter with an earring in her tongue.
-----------
Smith emphasized the "private frugality and good conduct of individuals" and "their universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition." He argued that it was "this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty...which has maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement." But since England "has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government...[it] is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people."
--------------
Before totalitarianism had ever been tried, Adam Smith was prescient in his scorn for it:
"The man of system [...] is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.[...] He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board."

Barbed wire always seems to be needed to keep the chessmen on their squares.
------------
Adam Smith did a lot of thinking about taxes, eighty-odd pages worth. He began with four sensible maxims of taxation: taxes ought to be inexpensive to collect, be levied when taxpayers are best able to pay them, be proportionate to the revenue that taxpayers "enjoy under the protection of the state," and be "certain, and not arbitrary."
The last maxim is the most sensible and therefore the least observed. The boggling complexity of tax law and the ceaseless fiddling with taxes, even by legislators who would lower them, violate Smith's principle that "a very considerable degree of inequality...is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty."
It's a principle that applies to practically everything, as anyone who is in love or waiting for a check in the mail knows.

Doing right by the children

So. It's only less than one short decade until the first child starts college. And they will both overlap for most of their time in school. I don't have a college fund for them yet. Although I'm solvent--no credit card debt, and my home & vehicles are paid for--we still live rather tightly. I dropped an unexpected $2500 on vehicle repairs over the past three months, and I'm looking at having to get rid of one of them this year. I'll buy used, because even though we keep our cars until we drive them into the ground, and don't want to borrow trouble, I don't want to have any car payments.

My situation is far from desperate, and probably doesn't even sound very difficult, to some. But it was at this juncture that I decided to look to the far horizon, and sock away a couple of grand each for my kids in an S&P Index mutual fund. I got it out of their savings accounts, which I and kind relatives have been funding monthly since they were toddlers. My hope is that the market will continue its pattern of returning an average of 10% yearly, if they hold these into middle age, probably past my clock-out time. If they let it ride, and we're not all pulling rickshaws for the Chinese by then, they ought to have a tidy cushion to help them buffer the buffets of middle age.

I won't let them thank me, if I'm still around and it pays off. I owe them this. I owe them this, and a thousand other things I haven't done for them. I just hope they gain financial wisdom earlier and in fuller measure than I did.

Happy 100th birthday, Samuel Barber

NPR has been digging deep into his oeuvre today, but this is what he's most famous for, The Adagio for Strings.

"I am called Habit"

Some good advice from Dave Ramsey, which I really need to take to heart:

I am your constant companion,
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag your down to failure.
I am at your command.
Half of the tasks that you do you might just as well
turn over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed,
you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done;
after a few lessons I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of all great people and
alas of all failures as well.
Those who are great I have made great,
those who are failures I have made failures.

I am not a machine, but I work with all the precision
of a machine, plus the intelligence of a person.
Now, you may run me for profit or
you may run me for ruin.
It makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me,
and I will lay the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am called Habit.

Christopher Hitchens rewrites the Ten Commandments

The kicker:

It’s difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words “Thou shalt not.” But who cannot summon the confidence to say: Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

I do hope that Christopher Hitchens is not going to become one of those acerbic types who, as he enters old age, becomes violently bitter and sour because the passing parade just doesn't seem that funny to him anymore. This piece seems jocular enough, but I'm just wondering...

Here's his argument in shorter if more flippant terms:

Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality: they are the perfect duties. If your morals make you dreary, depend on it they are wrong. I do not say, "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better men.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson


The only thing about which I feel strongly enough to dispute with him is his take on the Sabbath. It isn't intended to be simply a day of inertia, but to be kept holy. Here are some quotes about the Sabbath from some famous people:

The longer I live the more highly do I estimate the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel to those who impress its importance on the community.
--Daniel Webster

I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in every year.
--Coleridge

He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor.
--James Russell Lowell

To that in men which is secular and animal, Sunday says "Rest"; to that which is intellectual, moral, and social, "Grow."
--Henry Ward Beecher

I think the world of to-day would go mad, just frenzied with strain and pressure, but for the blessed institution of Sunday.
--Brooke Herford

Sunday is like a stile between the fields of toil, where we can kneel and pray, or sit and meditate.
--Longfellow

If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilised.
--Macaulay

Yes, the rest is welcome. I don't even like to go shopping on Sundays, so much do I pity the people who have to work on that day. I work some Sundays, and resent it. But a "lazy Sunday" is not the only kind of Sunday there is. The day can be quite fruitful for the spirit, if you cultivate it.

The Chilean Tsunami and Twitter

I watched a video feed of local Hawaiian news on UStream, with a Twitter feed in the side frame. My verdict: Twitter spam flashing past near the posts-per-second barrier is no substitute for news. Twitter's a fine service, and they've done good in finding lost children and rallying the Iranian opposition and everything. But in this instance it was useless as a news source.

More Amy Bishop nonsense

I just read that idiotic Jonathan Curiel column at TrueSlant, where he builds a fence around America in order to put Amy Bishop and the Tea Party in the same corral.

Behney’s remarks don’t reflect the sentiments on all Tea Party members. Nor does Bishop’s shooting spree mean that race is a factor whenever a white professor gets disgruntled by a tenure process overseen by minority administrators.

"But that's what I just spent my allotted column inches insinuating, so oopsie if you got that impression."

Amy Bishop rampage...why should politics matter?

The dextrosphere is airing out accused killer Amy Bishop's political leanings. She's alleged to be left-leaning, like 10 out of every 10 Harvard educated professors seem to be. A partisan though fair-enough roundup is here, at American Power blog.

So, so what? Is there any indication that her alleged crime was motivated by her political beliefs? Or that the police bungled her previous cases in deference to those beliefs? Can't people with advanced degrees succumb to workplace character flaws and frustrations that have nothing to do with religion or politics, same as we've sadly seen at any number of offices and yes post offices over the years? Where is the proof that she was channelling her inner Stalin?

People are dead and hurting because of this wicked woman, dropping the "allegedly" now. Information is still coming out, and will continue to come out, I hope. I seriously doubt that there is going to be any underlying political manisfesto in her motives, unlike Major Nidal or Timothy McVeigh. Anyone who's familiar with me knows I don't have the time of day for socialism. So let's not cheapen and invalidate the good fight against socialism by playing silly guilt-by-association games.

Love, personalized

Heard this in church today: Take the passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7--

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Now replace "love" with "I":

I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I am not rude, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.

Gives one pause, eh?

The Who at the Super Bowl

Pete was understanding of their subdued reception:

Backstage after their show, Townshend laughed and said: "You know, you could kind of tell from the stage the crowd is really here for the game."

"It was nice for that reason. It was nice to feel a part of something and not having it all to be about us," he added. When it was mentioned that most rock stars want everything to revolve around them, he joked and said: "We're too far gone to care I think."

They looked so faded. They were my favorite band in high school & college, though I never saw them live. It's hard to listen to Daltrey sing anymore. The only hard rock vocalist from his era who's kept his pipes intact, IMO, is Paul Rodgers:

Random Rock Bloggage

Four views of The Sugarfoot Rag:

Punniest headline of the week goes to...

MSNBC: Boosters flare in space debate

On the value of a free press

Journalists perform on an invisible stage. A broadsheet proscenium. We can't see the audience but we know they're there. Millions of them. Every Sunday I'm read by more people than will pick up a Booker Prize-nominated novel in a year. That's not a comparison of quality, it's a statement of impact. Almost every other bit of the culture may have more value but none has more importance. Without poetry, fiction, drama, music, art, dance and origami, we'd be immeasurably poorer, but we'd get on. Without news, without information we'd be back in the Dark Ages. There's no democracy without a free press. It's an absolute prerequisite for a free market. There is no global anything, just rumour and speculation based on ignorance. Freedom of speech is what all the other human rights and freedoms balance on. That may sound like unspeakable arrogance when applied to restaurant reviews or gossip columns. But that's not the point. Journalism isn't an individual sport like books and plays; it's a team effort. The power of the press is cumulative. It has a conscious humming momentum. You can - and probable do - pick up bits of it and sneer or sigh or fling them with great force at the dog. But together they make up the most precious thing we own.
-- A. A. Gill, Sunday Times, 2003

"It's very well for him, '' I hear you say, ''on his high horse about freedom, but just look at the papers. They're full of lies and gossip and laziness. The theory's fine, the practice is disgusting," Well, let's just look at that, I don't know what it is you do, what you make or sell, but consider this. Consider starting each morning with three or so dozen blank sheets of broadsheet paper. And then having to fill them with columns of facts, opinions based on facts and predictions extrapolated from facts. I don't know how many facts a newspaper has in it. Thousands. Tens of thousands, Millions. From the Stock Market to TV listings by way of court-rooms, parliaments, disasters, wars, celebrity denials, births, deaths, horoscopes and the pictures to go with them. Now tell me, how long did your last annual general report take? Days? Weeks? And you had all that information to hand. How long did the last letter you wrote take? You just made that up. Newspapers are the size of long novels. They're put together from around the globe from sources who lie, manipulate, want to sell things, hide things, spin things. Despite threats, injunctions, bullets, jails and non-returned phone calls, journalists do it every single day, from scratch. What's amazing, what's utterly staggering, is not the things papers get wrong, it's just how much they get right. Your business, no other business, could guarantee the percentage of accuracy that a newspaper does. And what's more, if you live in Britain, you don't get just one, you have the choice of a dozen national papers. Oh, and a small boy will come and put it through your letter box before you've even got out of bed. Nothing, but nothing, makes me prouder than being a hack.
-- ibid

Twitter saves baby's life

Well, if the Iranian resistance wasn't enough of a reason to quit sneering at Twitter, here's another one. A sick baby with a rare blood type got a suitable blood donor thanks to Twitter.

RIP Howard Zinn

Glad I was never assigned his tome when I was college, though I got fed other leftist takes on American history. I much prefer Paul Johnson's A History of the American People, because it is more about the actual people over the years, and not about academic radicals' projections of oppression & revolution onto history. America is more than the sum of her sins, and always has been.

Obama state of the union address

I let the kiddiwinks stay up and watch about 30 minutes of it for their education. When he mentioned how he had averted a second great depression, my oldest said, in her sulky 4th grade girly voice: "I don't want a second great depression!"

Legalize drugs?

I know that there's not 100% overlap between liberals and people who want to legalize drugs. But still, it's weird, those that do overlap. On one hand they say that the government is bought & paid for by big business interests, that corporations are running the show. One the other, they offer smiley-face fantasies about "tightly regulating" drug cartels once drugs become legal. the cartels are exponentially richer and more ruthless than any hedge fund manager you'd care to name--pluse they have guns. Just who is going to bring them to heel, and how?

Georgia Work Ready Certification

In 2006, Georgia Work Ready Certification was launched. It is now being more heavily advertised in response to the economic downturn. The idea is that prospective employees can take some tests, get "certified" that they will become good employees, and thus get a leg up in their hunt for a job.

Well, good luck to all concerned. But I just think it's a shame that a Georgia high school diploma doesn't perform the same "certification" function.

Don't forget Haiti

The story will begin slipping from the headlines in a few days, maybe weeks. But the hardhips from this disaster are going to last for years. Do your due diligence, find a charity or investment vehicle that really helps the Haitians, and give what you can.

Amazing Computer Generated film

Everything and everyone in here looks so real, but the description says it's all computer generated. Play it in full screen, on an HD monitor if you have one.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Via Foreign Dispatches

In Memoriam, Richard John Neuhaus

It's been one year since Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was suddenly summoned home. Too early, too early...

I admired him since I first encountered him, in the pages of The Wittenburg Door in the mid 80s. He recounted his journey from Sixties activist to conservative Catholic priest. He kept up his insistence for justice in Vietnam after the communists won, but was told by his fellow activists that the communists were on the correct side of the world revolution and were not to be criticized. Later on, I discovered First Things, don't remember how. Much of the contents resonated with me (though I continue to deplore their toleration of Intelligent Design charlatanry in their pages), and became part of my inner furniture.

In fact, I used to theme this blog as a running appreciation of FT. After a while I drifted out of schtick--I didn't have the intellectual firepower to do more than just link, it turned out. But I still resonate...

By chance, his memorial mass is just now starting, in New York City. Insert moment of silence here.

More. And more.

Tim Wilson

Just discovered the novelty country music artist Tim Wilson. See what you think: LiveLeak's crappy code doesn't seem to let the embed work, but it you double-click on it, it'll take you to the hosting site. It's worth it!

Random Rock Bloggage

The Youngbloods' "Get Together", from the late 70s No Nukes concert:

The Jihad--enemy of the civilized world

I find it fruitful to consider who do terrorists consider to be their enemies? RW militias in the U.S. hate the federal government. The IRA hates Britain. The Tamil Tigers hate the Sri Lankan government. The ETA hates the Spanish national government.

But Islamic jihadists attack everyone. Chechen jihadists attack Muscovites. Thai and Filipinio jihadists attack their nominal co-nationalists. Arab jihadists take it as a religious duty to attack non-dhimmified Jews. French “youths” burn cars, among less visible mischief. British jihadists are only the most visible part of the stealth jihad in that land. “Islam has bloody borders”, as someone once said.

That doesn’t include all Muslims, certainly. But it includes enough of them to constitute a serious problem for the peace of the world. There’s nothing directly comparable to the omni-fronted Jihad in any other militant movement in the world, not since the fall of expansive communism.

The Decade in Apologies

The Decade in Apologies

2000
Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker apologizes for dissing New Yorkers.

2001
George Bush kinda sorta apologizes to China, in the wake of China’s interceptor colliding with an American spy plane.

2002
Trent Lott apologizes for praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Presidential run.
Saddam Hussein apologizes for invading Kuwait.
Cardinal Bernard Law apologizes to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

2003
Ahnuld preemptively apologizes to any women who might claim he sexually harassed them.
Symbionese Liberation Army radicals apologize to family of slaying victim Myrna Opsahl at their sentencing.

2004
Justin Timberlake apologizes for causing Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.
George W. Bush apologizes for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

2005
U. S. Senate apologizes for historical inaction on lynching.
Prince Harry apologizes for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party.

2006
Seinfeld star Michael Richards apologizes for racial rant during standup comedy show.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney apologizes for scuffling with a Capitol Hill security officer.
Senator John Kerry apologizes for “botched joke”, that soldiers in Iraq are uneducated.

2007
Mattell apologizes to China over lead-based paint in imported toys.
Japanese Prime Minister apologizes to WWII sex slaves.

2008
Roger Clemens apologizes for “mistakes” in personal life.
AMA apologizes to black doctors for past racism.

2009
Singer Chris Brown apologizes to fans for assaulting girlfriend Rihanna.
U. S. Senate adopts resolution apologizing for slavery.
Kanye West apologizes for interrupting Taylor Swift’s award acceptance speech.
Tiger Woods apologizes to fans for “transgressions.”

Some milestones of the decade

* The ascension of Google from a new search engine to a near-complete internet experience in itself. Does anyone even think about about alta vista, dogpile, and lycos anymore, let alone use them?

* Wikipedia, which harnessed the aggregate power of public knowledge, for good and ill. By decade's end, its best articles were on a par with those from the Encyclopedia Britannica--because that's where many of them were originally cut 'n' pasted from. And where else could you lose an afternoon's work time, by sorting out the set lists of the Rolling Stones' 1981 tour?

* YouTube. From on-the-spot reportage in faraway places to deep archival footage which hadn't been seen in decades, YouTube was tele-democracy incarnate.

* The ouster of Cynthia McKinney. Yay! Gwinnett County voters no longer had to suffer the stigma of being represented by the cutest li'l communist in the House of Representatives.

* And the rise of the personal blog, and the challenge the best of them presented to the traditional media.

Here we go again...

Korean-American Activist Crosses Into North Korea

The most charitable explanation is that the horror-show that is North Korea sent this sensitive young man around the bend. Let's hope we don't send Bill Clinton back to kiss KJI's ring again, though.

A very Merry Christmas to all in the blogosphere

May this season find you in peace, joy, health, prosperity--or all primed to make a run at being those things in the upcoming year.

Picture from The Art Renewal Renewal Center museum

"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

"For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.

"If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.

"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well."
--Frederick Buechner

Big name blog wars...

...bring to mind this old Neil Young song:

I hear some people
been talkin' me down,
Bring up my name,
pass it 'round.
They don't mention
happy times
They do their thing,
I'll do mine.

Ooh baby,
that's hard to change
I can't tell them
how to feel.
Some get stoned,
some get strange,
But sooner or later
it all gets real.

Walk on, walk on,
Walk on, walk on.

Free after being wrongly imprisoned for 35 years

Stories like this wrench my heart.

James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

I'm very much a tough-on-crime type, as well as a supporter of capital punishment. So, in the interests of justice, I warmly support projects that result in freeing wrongly convicted people. The Innocence Project is perhaps the best known one.

Broadband for America rural areas

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce during a visit to Georgia that the government will provide stimulus grants and loans to bring broadband to communities that have little access to the technology.

Biden was to appear at Impulse Manufacturing in Dawsonville on Thursday to announce an initial $182 million investment in 18 projects in 17 states.

The White House says the federal money has already been matched with $46 million in private capital, and that the projects will provide job opportunities in addition to helping communities held back by the lack of broadband technology.

Good. Helping to build cyber infrastructure is a wise, forward thinking move by the federal government. Can't help but contrast how connected with high-speed internet South Korea is, compared to the U.S. Sure, it helps that Korea is much smaller, with less population to wire together, but they are nonetheless streets ahead of us in internet technology. A lot of other technology, too. When you think of "clever electronic gadgets", you don't think "made in USA", do you?

Asia and race

My wife once took a computer course in Atlanta with another student who was a black Korean. She was raised in Korea, and spoke the language like the native she was. The other Koreans in the class were amazed/repulsed by her, I could tell. I wince when I think of the life she must have had, growing up in Korea.

Which leads into this interesting roundup of viewpoints of race in China.

Most earth-like exo-planet ever seen is discovered relatively nearby

It’s not exactly Earth’s twin: It’s about six times bigger, a whole lot hotter, and made mostly of water.

So, living there might be akin to living in South Florida during a heat wave, after an enormous turkey dinner.

Le mot juste

So I was watching a Korean kids' program on TV in my inlaws' house in Gwangju over Thanksgiving. It was on JEI english instructional TV. It was an english language animated show, with english subtitles for those learning the language. At one point, one of the characters said "Darn!" Apparently, whoever was writing the captions couldn't find that word in their korean-english dictionary, at least not with the appropriate meaning. So they substituted another word: "Damn!"

Oops.

Video of terminally ill mother in law

Blogger just ate my original of this post, grrr. I'll try to recreate it. Hard to do once the catharsis is spent.

Apologies in advance for not sharing the video I'm discussing with you. Too private, I'm afraid.

I've been back in the States for a couple of weeks now. We went to Korea to visit my terminally ill MIL, before it's too late. Due to creeping dementia caused by an aneurysm, she doesn't even know she's sick. Fortunately she is surrounded by a large, loving family, many of whom are medical professionals. She won't lack for any comfort, physical or emotional, in her final months.

I took a lot of video of her while I was there: at family gatherings, in church, and just puttering around at home. I tried to get scenes of each of the grown children spending time with her alone, but didn't quite succeed. Hope no one feels left out. I've asked for old family photos from them too, to make a montage out of. (Costco nearly ruined the still photos I took on this trip, but that's another post.) I don't speak Korean, so I had a hard time anticipating where to point the video camera. But I hope I succeeded in capturing some good memories for the in-laws. I've only ever met Omoni (respectful Korean term for mother) on five visits. I might be the one with the only video footage of her, though; big responsibility.

There are two especially poignant scenes in the footage I've got. One is at church. All the family gathered from all over Korea to sing together. We were ostensibly singing to the congregation, to celebrate my family's visit, but we were really singing goodbye to her. As the camera pans back and forth, many singers can be seen dabbing their eyes. The actual farewell later, as we were setting off for the bus station, was anticlimatic by comparison.

The other scene was later, at Omoni's house. My two children, no longer quite so small, laid their heads in her lap, at my urging. She started patting their backs and saying "Jam-ja, jam-ja, jam-ja..." "Sleep, sleep, sleep". Just as she had done tens of thousands of times long ago with her own children, and with the grandchildren she raised, while the grown children were off pursuing their degrees and their careers. "Jam-ja, jam-ja, jam-ja..." I'm almost tearing up just typing about the sight. It will make a great coda for the finished film.

...*sigh*...

Swarms of starlings

Big name blog wars...oof!!

I've tried to stay out of them, and so far I've succeeded. I want to stay on friendly terms with as many of my favorite bloggers as I can. But lordy, the Great Dextrosphere Crackup is causing a real strain. I had to delete a comment here the other day, from someone who disapproves of the company I keep.

Dame Trot and her cat
Led a peaceable life
When they were not troubled
With other folks' strife

Baby Einstein dvd refund

When you're doing your Christmas shopping, don't forget to give yourself some extra folding money by sending in your old Baby Einstein dvds for a refund. Details here.

In retrospect, it was pretty silly. TV is a bad babysitter, how could having your baby stare at blinking pixels do anything good?

Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus

I heard on the radio that on this date in 1968, the superstar concert known as the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus began. The project was filmed but not released until 1996. The music's good, though the circus bits are expendable. See:









How can you not love Taj Mahal in a cowboy suit?

iPhone camera

Yet another use for duct tape: Turn your iPhone into an SLR camera.

Funny hell, boring heaven

One of my Korean brothers-in-law is a prominent surgeon, who spent a couple of years in the American Midwest. He said that the difference between Korea and America was that Korea was a "funny hell", and America was a "boring heaven". Korea is too crowded, not enough space, etc., but if you are wealthy you can carve out a very nice sphere to live in there. By contrast, he found the city in the cornfields he was doing an exchange residency in to be dull, creature comforts and abundant space notwithstanding.

If he ever comes back and resides in one of the coastal metropolises, I'm sure he'll change his mind.

Good visit with Omoni

As oftentimes happens with the terminally ill, my MIL is on an uptick this week, and is able to enjoy our visit. It's wonderfull, seeing our children make her old heart so merry and glad, just by their presence. I've been trying to explain this to the kids, how grandchildren have a special gift to make grandparents glad, simply by showing up. The children are pretty grumpy at times, wanting to leave and go play computers games, but I make them stay and sit with halmoni for a decent interval. I keep telling them that later they will be happy that they were able to make their Korean grandmother glad. They don't see it now, but they will understand later, in the fullness of time. Especially when they see the videotape of her laughing over them, squeezing their hands, and caressing their faces. Sorry, but for privacy I won't be posting the vids online.

My MIL is an educated woman, but she put in a lifetime of sacrifice to put her daughters and son through higher education and enabling them to become prominent professionals in their respective fields. It's very lucky that her twilight days are spent surrounded by grateful and attentive children--and, from time to time, cute as a button American grandchildren.

Fashionable Korea

I'm in Gwangju at the moment, near Chonnam National University. While my wife is visiting her mother and sisters, I've been out strolling the grounds of the nearby university. The students are sleek and fashionable, mostly dressed in black. It's uncanny what a strong hold fashion has on them: the same Beatles mop haircuts for the boys, the same black clothes, cut in an assortment of hot fashions, the same rectangular tortoise-shell eyeglasses. It's wrong to say so, but I can barely tell these kids apart, and I'm glad I don't have to.

Stimulus job boost in Massachussets exaggerated

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.

And I doubt that the Bay State is altogether unique in this regard. It's hard to create a solid foundation for economic growth when your political philosophy views money as just something to be flung with both hands from the back of a speeding bus.

Via Viking Pundit

School will stop fundraiser that sells higher grades

That pots-&-pans crashing racket you hear is the sound of a school districk suddenly coming to its senses.

Bing now a serious challenger to Google

So it says in this PC World article. However, the only time I see a Bing search show up in my sitemeter is when someone is using it to look for gay porn. Sorry, pervs: the only thing you're going to find here are these old blog posts of mine.

Of course, I've probably just attracted more unwelcome attention to myself. But if Bing is so smart, maybe it'll direct the rough trade traffic elsewhere, after I post this.

Life is a long song

Well, the sad news has finally come around. My mother-in-law is terminally ill, so we're flying back to Korea to see her before it's too late. This lovely rendition of this lovely song seems appropriate. Last time I was in Korea the in-laws surprised me by asking me to sing. I blanked, and managed to croak a few words of The Beatles' "In My Life". If they ask me again this time, I'll offer this:

When you're falling awake and you take stock of the new day,
And you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say,
Well, don't you fret, don't you fear,
I will give you good cheer.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

If you wait then your plate I will fill.

As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day,
And the twelve o'clock gloom spins the room,
You struggle on your way.
Well, don't you sigh, don't you cry,
Lick the dust from your eye.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

We will meet in the sweet light of dawn.

As the Baker Street train spills your pain all over your new dress,
And the symphony sounds underground put you under duress,
Well don't you squeal as the heel grinds you under the wheel.

Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.
Life's a long song.

But the tune ends too soon for us all.

Now this is inspired!

I enjoy Glenn Beck's radio show in moderation, haven't seen much of the TV show. But this satire will forever color it for me from now on. I love impressions, and this is just great.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Islamic Creationism

The phenomenon has raised concerns among scientists and educators - especially those in Muslim countries and in countries with growing Muslim minorities - who see in it a threat to scientific literacy, a drag on the potential for Muslim countries to build up their languishing scientific research sectors, and as another flashpoint in the Muslim world’s long-running struggle between religion and secularism. Unlike in the West, creationist beliefs are not associated in the Muslim world with religious fundamentalism, but instead are often espoused by members of the mainstream intellectual elite - liberals, by their own lights, who see the expansive, scientific-sounding claims of creationism as tracing a middle way between the guidance of religion and the promise of modern science. Critics of the movement fear that this makes it more likely that creationism will find its way into policies there, especially when the theory of evolution is portrayed among Muslim thinkers, as it often is, as an instrument of Western intellectual hegemony.

Cue Han Solo: "I got a bad feeling about this..."

How to be a good K-blogger

Ex-pat blogger Roboseyo has some good advice on better blogging. It's geared towards K-blogging, but a lot of the more general tips are well worth heeding. In fact, I think I will try to heed them. My health problems are in abeyance, and things are going better at work. So, maybe I can try to make this blog more worth looking in on, from time to time.

The Daily Show goes to Iran

Jon Stewart's crew went to Iran and didn't get eaten alive, therefore Iran is just a misunderstood victim of the U.S. propaganda machine. Wonder if the hipper-than-thou jerks spoke with any of these Iranians?

Random Korea reflections, 8

I was hiking in the brushy hills behind my sister-in-law's luxury condo in Gwangju. It was hot, I was sweaty, and when I came to a clearing with a small playground, I found a bench away from the other people there and sat, panting, and staring at the ground. Soon, I noticed a small commotion on the ground a little distance away. Something white and something black were rolling around. It was a white spider, and a wasp attempting to capture it, to feed to its larva. It looked very much like this:



They tussled, and the spider broke free and made a run for it. The wasp took flight, acquired the target with its large compound eyes, and pounced again. They rolled into a clench again, until the wasp managed to ram its stinger home. The spider, on its back, unclenched its legs, like a fist slowly opening. The wasp scooted around the inert spider, in that abrupt way insects have, and stung it again for good measure. Or maybe it was laying its egg inside, I don't know. It started to drag the spider up a blade of grass, and seemed to dither quite a bit doing that. So, I got up and headed back the way I came.

I don't know why this little scene has stayed with me so long, other than because I've always loved nature. And I think wasps are superb little predators.

Wounded warriors tell their stories

This seems to be from a longer program, anyone know what?

Finally took the plunge...

I finally, after all the decades of being on my anti-television high horse, have signed up for cable TV. Yes, I am now actually paying real money to watch television. I pick up about 20 broadcast channels--in high definition, nowadays--but now I am paying to view the same channels and a couple of dozen others, most of which I will never tune in to.

So what made me do this? Why, it's for the children, of course. Mine are too old for PBS kids stuff anymore, and there aren't any shows for their age on broadcast TV, to speak of. It's not like when I was growing up, when I could watch Saturday morning cartoons, and also the Three Stooges on weekdays before school. All that stuff has decamped to pay TV.

So, out of consideration of my kids' need to have a reasonable grounding in American youth culture, I've shelled out for them to watch Nick, Cartoon Network, and Disney. Now they won't feel like little foreigners when their friends are talking about what happened on Total Drama Island yesterday. And I confess: I would have been a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants if it had been on when I was a kid. If I'm lucky, I might get to watch the History Channel from time to time, after they go to bed.

Philadelphia Library to close?

Well, this is drastic. It sounds like they're trying to force the state's hand, like the National Park Service closing the Washington Monument when they're threatened with budget cuts.

And when did Philadelphia become such a blighted slum?

Philly has an amazing number of poorly-educated adults. Sadly 22 percent of the 1.1 million adults who live here don't even have basic literacy skills. Almost 400,000 adults have not earned a high school diploma.

Who sucked the spirit and vision out of all those people?

Update: looks like they're going to escape the ax after all. Whew!

Trapped Chinese Miners

Every so often I'll search "trapped miners" in Google's news aggregator. It always comes back with stories about trapped Chinese miners. Shows how much the worker's paradise cares about the workers....

Update: An explosion at an illegal coal mine killed 35 miners in central China’s Henan province Tuesday and left another 44 men trapped, the government said.

*Illegal* coal mine? How'd that happen?

14 Cows For America

NPR had a heartwarming segment this morning, about that Masai tribe which donated cattled to the U.S. after 9/11: 14 Cows For America. I had forgotten about that act of friendship, and how touched I was by it at the time.

(Picture swiped from http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/ )

Random Korea reflections, 7

One enduring image of Korean traffic is of the scooters. They come out of nowhere, zip between cars and between pedestrians on the sidewalk, and ignore traffic lights. And if there's a girl in back, she's riding sidesaddle.

Weather idiots

What kind of idiots bring their seven year old child to the rocky coast to watch a hurricane, as if they're visiting the effin' IMAX or something? These kind of idiots.

Well, that didn't take long...

...At work we're back to our old pattern of back-stabbing office politics. I had to pop tranquilizers yesterday and today. I'm dealing with some difficult subordinates, and they are determined to make trouble for me in retribution. Ugghhh... Memories of my Korea trip are still sustaining me, though. Plus, I got on a workable exercise and diet plan, and have lost ten of the twenty-five pounds I would like to lose by next summer. So, there's that.

Random Korea Reflections, 6

I've been following a number of blogs by expats in Korea since I got back. Many of them go on about the rudeness or at least tactlessness of the Koreans they meet. I guess I have to count myself lucky, since I encountered almost nothing of that sort myself. I drew a few stares, but--so I reasoned--it was because I turned up in residential areas, in a city where foreigners are not so common as in Seoul and Busan. Plus, I usually had my children in tow, who are cute enough to make you mess your britches.

Early some mornings I went out of the house we were staying in, down the winding residential street, to a small playground, where I let the kids play. From time to time people would cut through the playground, and give us a long look. But there were not a few smiles from the ajummas too, as they took in the sight of the giant foreigner appa pushing the kids on the swingset.

One morning an ajumma was sitting in the gazebo where I usually sit, so I sat down beside her. I offered her one of my water bottles, which she refused. She gestured at the kids on the monkeybars and said something. I had no idea, so I just replied, "Hankook umma, Migook appa." Korean mother, American father. She tried to talk with me some more, leaving me increasingly embarrassed, when the kids came over asking to go back to the house. I rose and bowed to her, and she to me, and parted ways.

Actually, I think the longest stare I got the whole trip was from a white women, whom I passed when leaving a Dunkin Donuts.

Random Korea Reflections, 5

Those of you who've read this blog for a while, and have the gift of reading between the lines, probably can guess that I've had a really tough time this past couple of years. This trip to Korea was quite a restorative, for which I'm most grateful.

Seeing the sights and spending time with my wife's wonderful family for a month was enough of a treat. Yet, there were a few other incidents which stuck with me, too. I was told that one brother-in-law, a professor, had been praying for me for months. He found out which way America was, and prayed intently in that direction, for my benefit. Who wouldn't be touched?

And one evening one sister took us to a little storefront church in a humble little neighborhood. We climbed the stairs to the sanctuary, simultaneously small, cute, calm, and welcoming, and there met the moksanim, the pastor. He was a small man, with a luminously kind face. He chatted with my wife and her sister in Korean, he having no English, then prayed over me at length, again in Korean. He then spoke to my wife for about twenty minutes, while I tried to keep control of the fidgety kids. Finally we thanked him, and then left.

Later, I asked my wife who that pastor was, and why we had visited him. She gave me a disgusted look, as she does whenever I've forgotten something that she told me months earlier. She reminded me that this was a pastor that my wife's sister admired, and who had been praying for me the whole previous year. I had completely forgotten about that, and was sorry that I didn't thank him for it. But I won't forget the blessing his kindness imparted to me.

Young woman under sentence of death...

...by honor killing. Watch the whole thing.

Random Korea reflections, 4

I went to a small Presbyterian church four times while we were in Gwangju. The service was very much along the same lines as what I was used to in the U.S. Singing, prayer, scripture reading, sermon, etc. The sermon seemed longer than in America, no doubt because I couldn't understand it! They served lunch downstairs afterwards, Korean food of course, except for one time when they served curry. Most of my in-laws are very devout, so we had devotions in their homes on occasion, too. When I was in Seoul, I paused to snap a pic of these street preachers in Myeongdung shopping district.

Random Korea Reflections, 3

Most of the people I stayed with were well off, living in luxury homes. Even those that had humbler homes were still comfortable. And most Koreans I saw on the street were well-dressed. So it was a little jarring to see visible poverty, though of course I knew that poverty is present in every society. Some images:

*An old, stooped woman, too poor to indulge in the elderly Koreans' vain custom of dyeing her hair black, rummaging through a wad of plastic and trash on the sidewalk, searching for recyclables.

*An old man in an alley, wincing in arthritic pain as he hoists the handles of his wagon, which he will pull through the streets in search of recyclable cardboard.

*An ajumma in Jeju Island, standing on the sidewalk and bowing to the traffic, trying to drum up business for her restaurant.

But one thing that was different from Atlanta is that, in Korea, I saw only two actual beggars, who were handicapped. I encountered no able-bodied aggressive panhandlers.

Random Korea Reflections, 2

Much of what I saw of Korea was through car, bus, and train windows. Even though I couldn't read the signs, I usually stared at the shops as we were being driven through the city. I also liked to people watch. One brother-in-law remarked that all foreigners loved to look at all the signs when they first came to Korea. I allowed as how that was true of me, too, even after a month. From the first day to the last, watching the flood of images stream past the passenger window, watching the people and scenes, was almost as fulfilling to me as going to the "official" sights.

Random Korea Reflections, 1

How generous are my wife's family? This generous: One brother-in-law put my name on his auto insurance, and offered me the use of his car while I was staying with him--he'd take a taxi to work and back. I declined, of course, of necessity as well as courtesy. The streets were too narrow and the traffic was too wild for me to navigate. In America we can turn right on red, but in Korea they go straight on red. Plus, I couldn't read the signs, and would have gotten lost immediately.

And this generous: Another set of in-laws were moving into a new home, a luxury condo in a hi-rise, at the same time we were there. They hurried up to move in, more so than they should have, so that we would be comfortable. The big bed, the hiking trail on the mountain in back, and so on, were partially chosen with me in mind, they said. That was beyond generous and verging on ridiculous, to my mind--but I was no less appreciative.

This generous: My kids couldn't turn around without someone giving them an ice cream cone. I already mentioned how another brother-in-law put us up in a 6-star hotel in Seoul, and gave us a lot of money to go see the sights. And how still another set of in-laws booked us into a beachfront condo on Jeju Island's gorgeous south shore. They treated us to meals at fine restaurants several times weekly. One of them bought some expensive Oriental medicine for me. I don't believe in the principles of Qi and such, but I drink the foul stuff twice daily anyway, because the love that went into its making is as strong as whatever medicinal powers it's supposed to have.

And on our last day, we had to take the overnight bus from Gwangju to Incheon airport, there to catch the plane for home. Several of them turned out at 3:00am to see us off at the bus station, after having dined with us just a few hours previously. What a family...

In return, I've managed to find small ways to help them over the years. I'm an American and a native English speaker, which comes in handy from time to time. One nephew is studying in the U.S. at the moment, and our home is his American home--his parents are grateful for that. I only hope that more of them can come visit in the years to come.

It's been two weeks since I returned from Korea...

...and I'm still beaming. We traveled to Korea to visit my wife's family in Gwangju, and traveled around sight-seeing and meeting people. Her family really killed the fatted calf for us, I must say. They are mostly upper-class, church-going medical professionals, and they paid for us to go stay in a 6-star hotel in Seoul, and to a beachfront condo on Jeju Island. They welcomed us into their homes, in turns, and doted on us to the point that I could barely phrase my thanks. I'm an American southerner, so I like to think I know something about courtesy and hospitality, but these people were just on a whole higher level. Since I returned, I've been surfing the blogs of foreigners living in Korea. Many of them spin tales of how rude Koreans are, how dull the attractions are. Well, as to the latter, I'm no seasoned traveler, being more of a homebody. Korea is the only east Asian country I've ever been to, so I don't compare the sights with China or Japan. (Plus, I have a pre-existing interest, as my father was in Korea during the war.) And to the former, I can only wish the resident foreigners to have contact with people beyond their school co-workers, restaurant ajummas, jostling strangers on the public transportation, and club pickups.

I'd love to share some family pictures of these wonderful people with you, but...you know...privacy and all that. You never know who's looking. You can see some generic vacation pics at my photo blog.

Back from Korea

I got back from a four week trip to Korea, visiting my wife's family. I'll have some bloggage and pictures up later. I can tell you now that it was a real adventure, a wonderful morale booster. I feel like a new man, and I hope I can keep the good vibes going. What a wonderful family she has...

Iran militia basiji kills young woman

The girl's father asks viewers to tell the world, so here you go. Bastards.