The WaPo reports that U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is apparently irked at a proposed statue of Martin Luther King that critics feel is just a tad too Stalinist for their tastes:

A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too “confrontational” and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries,” commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April.

Some have problems with the ethnicity of the sculptor himself:

Last year, the [Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project] Foundation selected Chinese master sculptor Lei Yixin to work on the memorial. He was banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution but is now considered a national treasure with a lifelong stipend from the government.

Critics said that an African American artist, or any American, would have been preferable. And at least one black sculptor, Ed Dwight of Denver, has said Lei’s models do not resemble King.

“Everybody has this problem with how Dr. King is represented,” Dwight said this week. “You can’t satisfy anybody, because everybody remembers him in a different way.”

The memorial foundation has said that Lei is internationally renowned and was selected for his experience with large public sculptures.

More on Lei Yixin and the MLK statue controversy in a 2007 WaPo piece here.

I was recently told by a prominent Korean architect that Shanghai is home to one of the few remaining communities of Art Deco artisans, mostly on account of the city having one of the world’s largest collections of Art Deco architecture (MUST SEE photo set). I say, if we’re going to outsource even the construction of our national monuments to the Chinese, screw Socialist Realism — go Art Deco! Hey, if it was good enough for Jesus…

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My brother Kevin, the man behind film review site Pretentious Musings (see also sidebar), takes some shots at print-media film critics at MSNBC:

The proliferation of online critics has been described as a “democratization” by many who enjoy getting their movie information from various sources throughout the land. Kevin Koehler runs a site called pretentiousmusings.com, which is included in rottentomatoes.com’s roundup of critics. He has a different take entirely. He feels most movie critics have written their own obituaries because they’re just not very good. He is not a fan of most of the film critics found in traditional print publications.

“I think most movie criticism is terrible,” he said. “Most of the best criticism now is online. For instance, I really like Walter Chaw, who writes for filmfreakcentral.com. Another is James Kendrick. Now because of the Internet, a lot of movie critics feel threatened. ‘Why aren’t people listening to us?’ It has to be the audience’s fault. Nobody ever says that maybe they should write better.”

Check out my brother’s site if you haven’t already.

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There are many paths up the mountain to happiness. Some try Zen meditation. Others vote conservative.

PS: Nice to see the “conservatism as pathology” tripe is still around.

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Stephen Colbert and Rain finally had their dance off.  According to yesterday’s Korea Times:

Top Korean singer Rain met his match during his visit to Los Angeles for the promotion of his movie, “Speed Racer.” The 25-year-old singer appeared on top comedian Stephen Colbert’s show “The Colbert Report.”

Video here.  Dialogue obviously kept to a minimum to avoid any “Engrish” moments.

No word yet on whether or not the singer turned actor had a chance to visit any of the local restaurants to chow down on some LA Galbi, given that some of his fellow celebrities would “rather gulp poison.”

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Okay, here’s a little break from bird flu and beef.  No NSFW pics, but we’ll have to make due with a more heart warming story for the time being.

According to a local Daytona Beach, FL paper, a Korean American immigrant tracked down a veteran of the 24th Infantry Division who had took him under his wing during the Korean War. 

You can read more here.  The sad thing is that these stories are going to be rarer and rarer as these fellas get older and pass on.

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Saddam Hussein’s diaries have revealed that the late dictator feared catching AIDS in prison:

When Saddam found out his U.S. military guards were also using his laundry line to dry clothes, he wrote that he demanded they stop, according to the excerpts.

“I explained to them that they are young and they could have young people’s diseases,” Saddam wrote. “My main concern was to not catch a venereal disease, an HIV disease, in this place.” He said some soldiers ignored his request.

Saddam also practiced English with his American guards and discussed women with his American doctor. Sure glad that part didn’t get translated.

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And for something completely different, we have this piece of culturally insensitive, NSFW fun. Note the expression on the face of the girl to the left.

(HT to reader)

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In a series of articles back stateside, it appears that Gen-Yers and Gen-Xers are getting written up as the slacker generation, growing-up with more privileges, education and prosperity than the older generations, but having less of the discipline, drive, focus and wisdom of the past. For example, it has been people in their late 20’s to 30’s who have defaulted with greater frequency on their loans in the current sub-prime mess.

Daniel Costello of the Los Angeles Times explores the question here. Even Harvard Business School’s Tammy Erickson cites studies that claim 20 somethings tend to feel overwhelmed, depressed and cry more readily and easily (i.e. are more “wimpish“). Whereas MSN Money simply asks, “20- and 30-somethings are in a financial mess. Is it because [they're] dumb, arrogant or simply uneducated?

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Uwe Boll is now my hero.

This is Uwe Boll’s world. We’re just squatting in it.

From Wired.

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Like Brian — who has a full write-up/commentary on the Sexy Mong girls’ battle against evil blue-eyes and interracial relationships (or at least when they involve Korean women and foreign men) — I watched “Sexy Mong” last night. Or at least the end half of it.

But I missed “the scene.” Actually, I didn’t even know there was “a scene” until I read about it on Korea Beat via Brian’s blog this morning.

And now I’m completely despondent.

Well, I can always console myself knowing there are three more episodes to go, and there’s likely to be plenty more where that came from. I’d imagine some resourceful blogger at Naver.com will soon come up with the goods, too.

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