Park Hyun

Signs that maybe American-style education is lacking something...

After writing about the serious problems Korea's facing, I ran into this, and wondered if America can really crow about its educational successes:

Check that out. The segment of Americans who are totally ignorant of biology actually grew over the last 26 years, and never receded, except for a single insignificant 1-point drop in 2007. Now consider what consequences these figure would have if they were for illiteracy rather than biology.

I'm not a science nerd. I had to struggle to get through genetics class in college. But the arguments for evolution are so overwhelming, and the arguments for divine creation so pathetic, that in any other country this level of support would be seen as indicative of a serious propaganda effort by the government, akin to North's Koreans' ignorance of the U.S. moon landings.

Americans are right to point out that Asian education systems should, and don't, teach critical thinking. However, they might want to ask why American schools seem to bad at teaching it themselves.

PREEMPTIVE NOTE: Many opponents of evolution believe that it is they who are the critical thinkers, taking on the "scientific establishment." In rebuttal, I have only to point out that critical thinking entails using logic and facts.

The hee-larious world of Barack Obama

All the news chatter seems to be about how humorless Obama is. After all, he didn't like the New York Times cover depicting him as a terrorist! What a wuss. So, just to look at two responses:

The Economist: "...he really should lighten up a bit. Otherwise he's deprived himself of an effective way to deflect minor annoyances."

The NYT: When Mr. Stewart on “The Daily Show” recently tried to joke about Mr. Obama changing his position on campaign financing, for instance, he met with such obvious resistance from the audience, he said, “You know, you’re allowed to laugh at him.” Mr. Stewart said in a telephone interview on Monday, “People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them.”

Given the press and comedian take on the last few Democratic candidates, I'd say the audience reaction is appropriate. Remember Al Gore, who so foolishly claimed he "invented" the Internet?

Punch line aside, he actually didn't.

But he did something pretty damn close.

So it's no wonder that Democrats are tired of their candidates being mocked so the media can appear to be "fair." There's nothing fair about a C-student Yale legacy who doesn't know crap about the world being put on an even ridicule footing with a policy wonk. If it makes us appear humorless, so be it. I love a good joke, but the laughs in 2000 are still costing us a lot eight years on.

That New Yorker cover...

People are screaming about the New Yorker cover - you know, the one with Muslim Barack and Black-Power Michelle Obama doing the "terrorist fist jab" while an American flag burns in the Oval Office fireplace (does the Oval Office even have a fireplace?).

(image taken from the Economist's Democracy in America blog)

Apparently, the thinking is that while liberals are smart enough to get the joke, non-New Yorker readers will not recognize parody, and the right-wing will use it as an excuse to continue calling Obama a muslim-terrorist-black-power-Usama-loving-freak.

Let them.

Limbaugh himself consistently makes shit up to throw at liberals, which is an effective tactic used since the days of A. Mitchell Palmer. The problem with liberals is that they take this shit seriously rather than staying focused on the Game Plan.

When Grant first tangled with Lee in the Battle of the Wilderness, aides kept running up to him, shouting that "Bobby Lee's" doing this or doing that. Grant finally got sick of it and shouted for them to stop thinking about what Bobby Lee was doing to them and to start thinking about what they were going to do to Bobby Lee.

Let's stop thinking about what talk-radio is doing to America and start thinking about what America can do to talk radio.

Top 10 reasons for Obama to pick Richardson

Slate's got a really cool Veep-Finder up, in which you enter the qualifications you want in a vice-president and it filters through the potential candidates. I wound up with Bill Richardson, who I think would be great on the ticket, for several excellent reasons:

1. He was perfectly happing watching the Superbowl with Bill Clinton, despite knowing he could endorse Obama;

 

2. If he can deal with North Korean negotiatiors, he might be able to deal with Republicans;

3. He's Hispanic, but older, more bigoted voters don't need to know that;

4. Obama can force him to shave if he wants to be on the ticket;

5. Confused Clintonistas might see him as a unity candidate;

6. Seems like the kind of friendly guy you wouldn't mind listening in to your tapped phone.

7. Victory would finally allow New Mexicans to put it to those assholes in Arizona;

8. Candidates could be known as Bill Obama, or Barack Richardson, thus letting Obama have at least one normal American name;

9. Older than Obama, but not so old his dyed hair looks unnatural;

10. Graduated from an elite East-Coast school, but one not so well-known as to sound elitist.

And you thought the Segway was wimpy...

China thinks not:

This is what "I (Heart) China" means

Pics and video from yesterday's riot of 6,000 Chinese in downtown Seoul:

Invading a hotel lobby and assaulting a man:

Linking the violence with other assaults in Japan:

Free Tibet protestors attacked by Chinese students:

Normally, I wouldn't want to fan the flames of ethnic prejudice. I was in Korea in 2002, when all whites were open targets because of a traffic accident in which an American armored personnel carrier ran over and killed two girls. I also remember "No Japanese Allowed" signs put in in restaurants and bars not too much later when Koreans were furious about Japanese textbooks making claims on Korean history.

This time, though, a group really is responsible for an outrage. I have nothing against Chinese people, and know many good Chinese, but the only appropriate response to this kind of behavior is mass deportations of Chinese students. The difference in this case is that the Chinese government clearly intends to use its overseas citizens as mob enforcers of its propaganda. If that is the case, governments have good reason to block Chinese citizens from coming into their countries.

I've lost my lying compass

Studying Korean international relations and politics, I always had a solid compass to point me though the bullshit: Whatever North Korea says, it's lying.

This worked well for a long time: Food aid going to civilians? Lying. No nukes? Lying. Diplomats not selling drugs from their embassies? Lying.

As time went on - very slowly - throughout the Bush Administration, I developed a second compass: Whatever the administration says, it's lying. That has also worked pretty well for me: Iraq? Lying. Katrina aid? Lying. "Clear Skies Act"? Lying.

But what do I do now that my two trustworthy compasses are pointing at each other?

The autogenocide of the elite

I don't have time right now to flesh this out, but I just read this disturbing statistic on The Marmot's Hole:

While Korean international students and Korean-American students account for about 10 percent of all students in the Ivy League, studies show that they comprise more than 60 percent of suicides in the Ivy League.

The figure itself comes via my old employer, The JoongAng Daily.

A month of two ago I finished Jared Diamond's "Collapse," and was struck by how often the pressures of complicated societies led to their own extinction. The chapter on Easter Island is by now almost famous for its effectively eerie description of a society destroying itself. On Easter, the competition to become "big men" drove the villages to erect larger and larger stone monuments, each requiring more and more logs to be put up. What started out as a lush and fertile island shriveled up once its forest cover disappeared, and the people starved.

Somehow I feel we're seeing something similar in Korea.