According to the news, the guy who killed himself after attempting to set the Ministry of Education alight was a) mentally unhinged and b) had been upset about the ministry’s decision—at the behest of creationists—to allow publishers to delete references to archaeopteryx in school textbooks.
Police are investigating if his complaints formed his motive for setting the blaze.
The government, incidentally, overruled the ministry’s decision and instructed publishers to keep reference to the archaeopteryx in. Archaeopteryx fans, take heart.
BTW, the Korean word for archaeopteryx is 시조새.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
seeing as how Romney is a big fan of “big bird”, I wish he would tweet in on this
Archaeopteryx: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
I think a) is the main driver for why the guy did what he did. I also like how he exposed a security weakness–something which has been happening a lot lately [*cough* DMZ barracks *cough*].
You know – the barracks thing is really not that new. Another guy and I were up at one of the Dets and wanted to go down to the village (what a hike) and had to pass through a Korean base. It was night and no one was at the back gate – even though there should have been someone – and we weren’t going to take our chances walking the perimeter where signs warning about landmines were prominently displayed, so we decided to climb over the fence. The stupidity of youth. We actually walked through the base and would have passed completely unknown except the dogs began to bark. Their commander was none to pleased when he found out what we had done. When we returned later that morning everyone was out there on guard duty.
You mean “villa” security guards asleep at their posts in front of banks of CCTV monitors is the norm for the military too? I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya.
#3: Good story, by the way. She must have been something special.
Woah–we have to learn Greek-Roman names for dinosaurs, and Koreans get to come up with their own names?
Exactly bballi bballi
#6 – Koreans didn’t come up with their own name for “archaeopteryx.” Most scientific terms, including this one, in Korean are borrowed from Japanese.
Does this guy qualify for a Darwin Award? Just askin’ . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
#8,
esoteric English pronunciation too. (The ‘gyaru’(girl) was cute though.) Here are some words I heard of from harabeojis in Korea:
- doraku: truck
- bakku: back
- doramu: drum
- bakketsu: bucket
- pompu: pump
- paipu: pipe
- mira: mirror
- gurakbu: club
It is great blessing Koreans learn English without Japanese influence.
There are still some in use:
아르바이트 – Arbeit (German)
리모컨 – Remote control
다스 – Dozen
I’m not sure whether that’s a blessing.
#9: You have to take yourself out of the gene pool to qualify for the Darwins. However, this guy seems to have done that in this age of Google cache and Wikipedia.
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