Currently G.W. Bush’s use of executive privilege to prevent information from being revealed, is one way to hide things but here in Seoul, Roh seems to have used a recently passed law (2007, April) to place many records from the his administration in a Presidential Repository of Hidden Things, where only a high court warrant, a vote of two-thirds of the National Assembly or a philospher’s stone would allow the hidden records to be read. As per the Han-nara floor leader:
The new government has difficulties carrying out its duties, as it is unable to review Cheong Wa Dae records and files drawn up under the Roh administration . . . this is irrational.
Why is it irrational?
Apparently the in-house database that held Blue House working files were purged of almost all useful documents, leaving the new administration with little clue of what business was being conducted.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d love to draw up a nice, long comment on this, but I’m too busy these days writing reports for Korean companies that boast of their commitment to full transparency, complete disclosure, ethical management, international standards of governance and open communication with their stakeholders.
Someone call up Indiana Jones.
Ditto to #1.
Each time I see the word “transparency” I can only chuckle, as it one of my Korean boss’s favorite words. His actions in 2006, however, in which we had a bit of a kerfuffle when he reneged on a promise related to my visa and didn’t bother to inform me, defined anti-transparency / untransparency / opaqueness.
I think someone’s English-Korean dictionary has the words ‘transparency’ and ‘vapidity’ confused.
You cannot have a worse president than Roh. I’d rather have some poor African guy as president.
To quote my uncle, “you make a better door than a window!”
Sigh**
It’s 2 am, I’m tired. I have the CEO Message for LG Life Science’s annual report in front of me. The Korean version has been approved, and states that 2007′s results were given a boost by the company’s redoubled focus on new drug development.
New drug development takes 10 years and costs a lot of money. There is no way to boost annual results by spending money on R&D. In fact, the opposite is true.
What to do….
“Linkd”, can you not reword it in English? I’ve had to do the very same thing you are doing now so I do not envy you. Make your own Repository of Hidden Things out of words.
After some back-and-forth, during which the translator struggled to explain the “logic” that she was sure I wasn’t grasping, and me struggling to explain the holes in said logic to her, we settled on this:
The rest of my day shall be spent trying to find new ways to describe every one of SK Group’s many affiliates as individually laying claim to the title of “global leading company”.
…I try to tell myself I’m part of the solution…baby steps….
…and how the fuck did I suddenly end up in France?
I, for one, welcome our new French Internet overlords.
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