(This is a little old, but I didn’t find it in the Hole. If this has been posted here before, will our Dear Leader please delete it.)
This story from The Japan Times starts out innocently enough:
Yoon, a feisty 32-year-old Korean woman with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, is happy to be living and working in her newly adopted [...]
March 31, 2008 – 10:14 am
UPDATE: The deadline for applications has been pushed back to April 7.
ORIGINAL POST: Liberty in North Korea (one of my favorite organizations) has a couple of upcoming projects which might be of interest to some readers. Please note that the deadline for submissions is March 31 (today) but they may take a few late ones [...]
March 29, 2008 – 11:42 am
Announcements for Americans who want to do politics here.
Republicans Abroad-Korea is meeting Sunday (tomorrow) at 2:00 in the lobby coffee shop of the Seoul Hilton (Namsan). Click here for a map and directions.
I emailed my contacts at Democrats Abroad but they have not gotten back to me yet. If anyone knows of what they are doing [...]
If you ever needed proof that great minds think alike, Joshua at One Free Korea and I both used Monty Python references in pieces published yesterday about the ongoing (and ongoing and….) talks on NK nukes.
Joshua invokes the Dead Parrot Sketch when pointing out part of the problem with the six party talks and the Geneva sideshow in [...]
March 20, 2008 – 11:48 am
It seems that President Lee does not see a weaker won as all good news (Reuters):
“Although there is more or less a positive effect, (the weaker won) becomes a threatening factor to corporate management, and especially, appears to cause a sharp rise in consumer prices,” Lee said.
Trying to keep the won weak against the dollar [...]
The great nomination purge that is taking place in the Grand National Party is also affecting folks in the United (for the moment) Democratic Party.
The biggest name to lose his spot was the man, the myth, Rhee In-jae.
Unlike many of the other legislators who lost their spots, he didn’t fall because of corruption. So [...]
I did the introduction to my American government class yesterday. As part of it, I was talking about hegemony. I asked the students something like “was there any country that was politically and culturally dominant in East Asia 500 years ago?”
….. (cricket chirping)
I tried rephrasing the question a few times, but still got nothing. I did a [...]
I kind of dread bring the US presidential election back on board, but that is the topic of my most recent KT piece, specifically:
So, what would Lee Myung-bak do about Michigan and Florida?
Read the rest to find out what I think he would do.
BTW, I ended up using most of the column just to explain [...]
Hey, isn’t it about time for another “he said, he said” moment in the six-party process?
Say no more (AP):
NEW YORK, March 7 (AP) - (Kyodo)—North Korea admitted to sending engineers to military- related and other facilities in Syria during its recent talks with the United States over its nuclear program, diplomatic sources in New York [...]
Say you are a hard-working immigrant from Korea in the D.C. suburbs of northern Viginia and you feel like relaxing with a bit of the old country. What can you do?
Don’t worry. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is here to help you get that old-school jimjilbang experience (Washington Post):
Behind the modest facade of a 1980s-era Fairfax County strip [...]
February 25, 2008 – 5:53 pm
The open letter has got to be one of the most pretentious exercises in a columnist’s bags of tricks. The whole idea of writing a personal letter to some world leader or another to give him or her advice just drips with self-importance.
So, being the big-head that I am, I naturally had to try one [...]
February 25, 2008 – 4:37 pm
Everyone’s favorite half-Korean Bean Pole boy is going Hollywood (Korea Times):
Hearthrob actor Daniel Henney, 28, will costar in the new X-men spin-off film “X-men Origins: Wolverine.”
Henney will star as Agent Zero of the Mutant Weapon X program, a mutant who can control electricity and has specialized tracking abilities, according to Twentieth Century Fox Korea.
Lest you you [...]
February 21, 2008 – 7:32 pm
Writing happy news stories in North Korea is probably the most difficult job in journalism considering the material they have to work with (concentration camps, famine, repression and all that).
However, I could not imagine that even our friends up at (North) Korean Central News Agency would be so desperate for good news that we would see [...]
February 21, 2008 – 12:58 pm
(UPDATE: Here is the link I forgot to include in the orignial post.)
Entertainer No Hong-chul was attacked by a mentally unstable man yesterday (Korea Times):
According to Gangnam Police Station handling the case, No arrived at his apartment around 8 p.m. after shooting a TV program. The entertainer, who thought Kim was one of his fans waiting [...]
February 11, 2008 – 6:47 pm
How do Korean voters keep getting stuck with crooks? What is going on with the Grand National Party nominations right now is a good illustration (my Korea Times piece):
The [General Assembly nomination] impasse was resolved last week when the sides agreed that politicians who were convicted, but not sentenced to prison, could run for office [...]
February 9, 2008 – 9:43 am
We are all aware that the North Koreans have not followed through on their part of the denuclearization process. In testimony before Congress, Christopher Hill puts part of the blame for that on North Korea’s stone-age infrastructure (Kansas City Star).
North Korea has slowed the dismantling of its nuclear reactor because it hasn’t received the amount [...]
February 5, 2008 – 2:31 pm
OK, this is the last time you will hear this from me.
The Super Tuesday (Wednesday, Korean time) lunch will be tomorrow from 11:00 to 3:00 at the VFW Canteen near Noksapyeong Station. It is open for anyone interested in American politics, drinking beer or both.
Here are directions and maps.
Right now, it looks like we will [...]
February 4, 2008 – 4:39 pm
As I talked about last week, I am organizing a Super Tuesday results watching lunch this Wednesday, February 6.
It is being organized by members of Repubicans Abroad-Korea but everyone is welcome as long as you like talking politics. I have already sent invitations to the Democrats and the Libertarians.
Time: Wednesday, February 6 from 11:00 to [...]
February 4, 2008 – 11:48 am
Any Hole readers in the greater D.C. area might want to check out this symposium put on by the Institute for Corean-American Studies on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 13.
Although the “C” in Korean might raise some suspicion that it is a hack group, ICAS is a respected organization and has lined-up some pretty heavy hitters, including Senator [...]
February 2, 2008 – 5:19 pm
What happens when things get a little too physical at a Korean women’s basketball game? If you said that someone gets, um… slapped, you are correct.
