Today’s Salon has an interesting article on hip-hop dancing in Korea. Apparently, in just a short time, Korea’s made a bit of a name for itself in the b-boy dance scene. Once seen as a strange fringe of American dancing and rejected by Korean government and society, it has now started to gain [...]
One of my favorite comedic personalities, George Carlin, is dead at 71.
Oddly enough, just yesterday I mentioned to my wife how much I enjoyed his stuff.
Rest in peace.
Mitchell Bard of The Huffington Post acknowledges that the protests regarding American beef imports have a nationalistic root. However, his take away is different than other analysts. Mitchell looks at the protests in Korea and bemoans why there are no similar displays of outrages in the U.S.
Granted, The Huffington Post is a liberal [...]
CNN has an interesting interview with Joseph Rykwert, a leading architectural historian and his thoughts on the relation between buildings, space and society and why large buildings no longer seem to have that energy they once did.
“Global Girl” Reese Witherspoon dons a kimono for her Japanese fans.
(PRNewsFoto/Avon Products, Inc., JUNKO KIMURA)
Hurry, someone get the news to Sohn Hak-kyu!
In a new Hanes T-Shirt commerical Charlie Sheen plays himself and acting the over eager fan, asks Michael Jordan if he wants to go out for dinner and eat some Korean barbecue (a.ka. LA Galbi) for which Michael says “no.” Here is the Youtube.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNjf8tz8ltg[/youtube]
So, it’s not a diss on Korean beef per say… but I [...]
US Ambassador Sandy Vershbow said today he didn’t feel there was a need to renegotiate the beef deal, reports Yonhap.
Meeting with Foreign Minister Yoo Myung-hwan, Vershbow said the April negotiations, based on scientific grounds, went well, and that there was no scientific ground to delay the execution of the agreement. He said he couldn’t deny [...]
Per a recent AP article, the American intelligence community recognizes that it needs more help in counter terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Thus, in a site just a few miles away from CIA headquarters, they sponsored a summit to recruit more Arabic, Farsi and Pashtu native speakers.
Per the article:
The U.S. knows it [...]
Ministers from the United States, Canada, Denmark and Russia have agreed to let the UN rule on conflicting territorial claims on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean.
Now, while there are probably some very interesting constitutional, geopolitical and international legal issues that come into play, I’m more interested in where this ministerial meeting took place — [...]
I’m a bit late with this, but I wanted to note with sadness the passing of actor/director Sydney Pollack, whose work I enjoyed tremendously.
As I remember it, once upon a time Robert mentioned being forbidden to take pictures in some parts of Seoul but it seems that this is becoming more a problem in other places as well. Is this security or a lack of freedom?
In his whirlwind trip to Korea two weeks ago, Bill Gates came bearing gifts. He presented an XBox 360 to president Lee Myung-bak custom-covered in mother-of-pearl!
Bill out-Koreaned Koreans by presenting modern gifts that can be accepted from a cultural standpoint (a tradition perhaps started here?). Kim Young-jun, the Korean artist who was commissioned by Microsoft [...]
Last year the city of Boston began transliterating candidates’ names on local ballots, and now the city council is petitioning for names on state and federal ballots to be written in Chinese characters, also.
“It’s just a very basic right,” said Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, which is pushing the vote. “Why [...]
Sheyla Hershey wasn’t satisifed with her record-breaking FFF silicone bags, the world’s largest, but the state of Texas forbids implants larger than 1,000ccs per breast, so Sheyla, who aspired to look like Dolly Parton since she was 9, became a medical tourist and had her wish granted by doctors in Brazil. No post-surgery photos [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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,” [...]
Korea News via Google