ROK Drop Open Thread – January 6, 2013

Tags: Open Threads

• Kevin Kim
  1:34 am on January 6th, 2013 1

  Ayup.

• Glans
  6:26 am on January 6th, 2013 2

  Chuck Hagel, secdef? Michael Moore unearthed an old quote, Hagel saying the Iraq war was about oil. Bill Kristol says that’s a good reason not to confirm him. Let Mr Moore take it from there.

• Glans
  6:27 am on January 6th, 2013 3

  GI Korea, I’m still getting the ‘missing argument’ error. And I try not to argue! I just point out interesting things to read.

• fatima
  6:30 am on January 6th, 2013 4

  I love your blog its amazing

  Please check mine out and if you like it follow me back, id really appreciate the support!

  http://toumii.blogspot.com.au/

• tbonetylr
  8:07 am on January 6th, 2013 5

  Glans # 2, Thanks for the M.M. link. It’s good to know that Gen. John Abizaid(former commander of CENTCOM), Alan Greenspan, Ann Coulter, and Midge Decter are all “vulgar and disgusting” for saying the “Iraq war was about oil” just like Chuck Hagel(NOT).

  Glans # 3, What do you mean “missing argument” error, are we being monitored for how good/bad we argue?

• Sonagi
  8:43 am on January 6th, 2013 6

  Keep the great links coming, Glans.

• Glans
  9:21 am on January 6th, 2013 7

  Y’all want an outstanding link?

  How about firearms training for teachers? Maggie Severns reports for Mother Jones.

  How about #26 of the previous open thread?

  Or how about a gay blog, Monster Island? Gay in the traditional sense, delightful, joyous, happy.

  So many links, so little time.

• Retired GI
  4:45 pm on January 6th, 2013 8

  http://dcclothesline.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/if-they-come-for-your-guns-do-you-have-a-responsibility-to-fight/

• tbonetylr
  6:41 pm on January 6th, 2013 9

  Court: Flipping the bird at a cop doesn’t warrant arrest(nor is it a reason to be pulled over).
  http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/04/16348364-court-flipping-the-bird-at-a-cop-doesnt-warrant-arrest?lite

• tbonetylr
  7:20 pm on January 6th, 2013 10

  “Gay in the traditional sense, delightful, joyous, happy.”

  Everything’s wonderful in the land of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, like Arirang TV/media treating everyone like children in the neighborhood.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su0XJFC99hY&feature=endscreen&NR=1
  Monster Island could do the same as the Intro does.

• Eddie Cantor
  1:24 am on January 7th, 2013 11

  Investigation proceeding into how $72.3 million was wasted promoting Korean food overseas.

  http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2013/01/123_128372.html

• Eddie Cantor
  1:26 am on January 7th, 2013 12

  Bureaucratic ambitions to foster “hansik,’’ or traditional Korean food, as the newest star in global cuisine appears to be on hold as lawmakers vow to look into allegations that the existing government investment has been wasted and abused.

  Representatives of the governing Saenuri Party and opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) have agreed on the need to investigate how the 76.9 billion won (about $72.3 million) budget has been used amid increasing criticism of bad management and poor results.

  The two parties will jointly submit a bill to begin the probe during the National Assembly’s extraordinary session later this month. Should the investigation expose any irregularities or wrongdoings, the case will be taken to prosecutors, according to the parties.

  State agencies and public organizations to be targeted by the investigation include the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation, the Korean Food Foundation and the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

  ______________________________________

  The government spent 5 billion won in 2011 opening a flagship Korean food restaurant in the heart of Manhattan, New York, which closed last year amid snowballing debt.

  “The (Korean food) globalization project has been pushed forward without a fine-tuned roadmap or action plan, which caused the government’s spending spree to go on without any achievements,” said lawmaker Kim Jae-won of the ruling Saenuri Party.

  “The government’s work focused excessively on public relations activities, while it paid little attention to forming strategies that will fundamentally reinforce the international competitiveness of Korean food.”

  Nearly 49 percent of the budget assigned to the Korean Food Foundation between 2010 and 2011 was used for public relations, the lawmaker said.

• SmokingFreedomGuy
  8:31 am on January 7th, 2013 13

  Ask a Korean, DPRK spy or just an ignorant ass?

  http://askakorean.blogspot.kr/2012/12/quick-thought-about-psys-past-anti.html

  I don’t read much there because the guy’s so removed from an actual Korean it’s a waste of time but he really went out of his way to sensationalize this piece to support a weak excuse for PSY’s past behavior. Would be nice if GI would take his reality-bat to that article.

  Oh and for those that will complain about more PSY-talk hush; maybe I’m tired hearing you go off on ridiculous tracks? Maybe Tom’s tired of you bashing him?

• Eddie Cantor
  2:24 pm on January 7th, 2013 14

• Glans
  2:38 pm on January 7th, 2013 15

  Michelle Rhee has escaped our attention for a while. Bob Somerby complains, at the Daily Howler, that the New York Times’s new education correspondent writes more about Ms Rhee’s gloomy pontification than about America’s improving test scores.

• Eddie Cantor
  5:46 pm on January 7th, 2013 16

  Brace yourself for some shocking news. Are you sitting down? Good.

  http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/01/08/2013010800356.html

  Koreans Heaviest Drinkers Among Asian Americans

• Teadrinker
  6:06 pm on January 7th, 2013 17

  #13,

  Wow, he swallowed the BS about how Yongsan is to become a green zone if and when the USFK moves out and asked for seconds.

• Sonagi
  6:31 pm on January 7th, 2013 18

  I have DH on my Blogger reading list, thanks to you, Glans. I nearly vomited when I read in the NYT puff piece that Rhee could replace Dumbkin if he were to quit, because of RTTT, I was apathetic about Obama’s re-election until Rmoney was nominated and picked Lyin’ Ryan as his running mate,

• Sonagi
  6:44 pm on January 7th, 2013 19

  And here’s a link for you, Glans, short but lspiced with a few zingers:

  “One problem with the education “reform” industry is not merely that it generally looks at “education” as though it were a commodity, like soybeans, and that the problems with how we educate a great many children of our fellow citizens can be solved if we just refine the delivery systems for the product. In other words, most education “reform” proponents treat “education” as though it exists in a vacuum unaffected by the factors — like, say, joblessness and poverty — in the real world outside the classroom. (How many prominent school “reformers” have stepped up and said anything about the increasingly effective campaign by the NRA to arm public school teachers? Thought so.) Thus do we come to the second problem with the education “reform” movement — it is shot through root and branch with patent-medicine remedies pitched by for-profit grifters and hustlers.”

  “Standardized testing is the crack cocaine of education”

  Read more: Rhee Finances – Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/michelle-rhee-corporate-public-schools-010713#ixzz2HLOo0QTT

  http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/michelle-rhee-corporate-public-schools-010713?src=soc_fcbks

• Teadrinker
  6:56 pm on January 7th, 2013 20

  #19,

  I find it ironic that some researchers claim South Korea got rid of the two-tiered educational system that was in place during the Japanese occupation (Japanese students were educated to rule, Koreans were educated to be ruled) without discussing the current inequality in education. Sure, some former presidents and prime ministers went to technical high schools, but I find it highly unlikely that we’ll see that in 20 years.

• Glans
  7:06 pm on January 7th, 2013 21

  Thanks, Sonagi. I never imagined I’d find interesting stuff on education in Esquire.

• Teadrinker
  7:10 pm on January 7th, 2013 22

  #19,

  Back on topic…Using standardized testing to snap the whip at teachers? That’s obtuse.

  We had standardized tests in my province in Canada (I have worked grading these exams while I was a university student, as a matter of fact). The main purposes for these exams was to ensure that the teachers didn’t throw softball questions on exams and to ensure that the teachers followed the provincial government’s curriculum. We don’t have the equivalent of your SATs in Canada. The weight of a student’s university admission is based on his or her GPA and intracurricular and extracurricular activities.

• Sonagi
  7:59 pm on January 7th, 2013 23

  In some states, standardized test score data comprises 40% of a teacher’s evaluation, thanks to Race to the Top bribery and coercion. My state just adopted a new teacher evaluation system that also gives 40% weight to student data, but thankfully, we get to choose multiple measures and are not forced to rely on one test. My school, like others across the country, had to fork over a hefty sum of money to buy the software program to manage the new teacher evaluation system,

• GI Korea
  9:26 pm on January 7th, 2013 24

  Glans & Sonagi good reads. I am looking forward to the Frontline show on Rhee.

• Teadrinker
  11:50 pm on January 7th, 2013 25

  #23,

  As you were suggesting in #19, it sure seems as if teachers in the US are being punished for the government’s lack of support for disadvantaged families. It’s almost as if the government wants a certain segment of society to remain under educated and poor.

• kangaji
  2:50 am on January 8th, 2013 26

  I was happy to hear Chuck Hagel say he was an American Senator and not an Israeli Senator, and found it amusing that people thought he said something wrong.

• Glans
  10:20 am on January 9th, 2013 27

  Michelle Rhee was the subject of all fifty-three minutes of Frontline. I found the report mostly positive, but it did seem to show her as too prone to firing people instead of developing them. It left her claims of spectacular test score increases dubious, because it showed that they weren’t adequately investigated.

  View the report at PBS.

• GI Korea
  6:00 pm on January 9th, 2013 28

  Glans, I saw the program last night and I am actually typing up a posting about what I thought about Rhee in the program right now. It will be posted shortly.

• Eddie Cantor
  7:10 pm on January 9th, 2013 29

  A wise man speaks the truth.

  http://nwww.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130109000782

  Poet Kim Ji-ha, a well-known dissident figure during former President Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian regime in the 1960s and ’70s, has been stirring up controversy since he abruptly announced his support for Park’s daughter, president-elect Park Geun-hye.

  On Tuesday, the 72-year-old poet shocked the public further when he bashed Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo during an interview with a local radio station. Not mincing his words, Kim said Moon’s performance as a presidential candidate was “dreadful,” claiming the election campaign was “all about former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung” and had no solid pledge. The poet also called Ahn “empty-headed” adding, “He’d talk and talk everyday (during the campaign), but everything he said had no substance.”
  The poet, who was imprisoned several times and received the death sentence for his politically-resistant literary works and anti-government activities during former President Park’s regime, announced his support for then-candidate Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri party in November of last year. Claiming that time was ripe for a woman’s leadership, Kim threw his weight behind his former tormentor’s daughter. The announcement caused much shock in the liberal opposition bloc, as Kim had been critical of former President Park’s dictatorship throughout his literary career.

  Raising a fierce voice against authoritarian rule, Kim was imprisoned after the publication of “Five Thieves,” a collection of poems that openly criticized corrupt politicians and government officials.

  On the radio show, Kim also said he agrees with a controversial remark made by Park Geun-hye’s chief spokesperson Yoon Chang-jung. Yoon, a former conservative columnist, received much public criticism after calling the 48 percent of the voters who supported for Moon “a group that is against this country.”

  “(The 48 percent of the voters) are becoming communist because they are following the communist forces,” Kim said.

• Denny
  7:19 am on January 10th, 2013 30

  Korean tourists beaten by GREEK police as illegal migrants

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20958353

  Greek police have stepped up efforts to catch illegal immigrants in recent months, launching a new operation to check the papers of people who look foreign. But tourists have also been picked up in the sweeps – and at least two have been badly beaten.

  When Korean backpacker Hyun Young Jung was stopped by a tall scruffy looking man speaking Greek on the street in central Athens he thought it might be some kind of scam, so he dismissed the man politely and continued on his way.

  A few moments later he was stopped again, this time by a man in uniform who asked for his documents. But as a hardened traveller he was cautious.

  Greece was the 16th stop in his two-year-long round-the-world trip and he’d often been warned about people dressing in fake uniforms to extract money from backpackers, so while he handed over his passport he also asked the man to show him his police ID.

  Instead, Jung says, he received a punch in the face.

  Within seconds, the uniformed man and his plainclothes partner – the man who had first approached Jung – had him down on the ground and were kicking him, according to the Korean.

  When Jung was released from police custody without charge just a few hours after being detained, he says one officer shouted after him, “Hey Korean, go home!”

  “I travelled through Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Armenia but I never felt in as much danger as in Athens,” Jung says.

  “Whenever people ask me if they should visit Greece I tell them to go to Turkey instead.”

• Glans
  8:11 am on January 10th, 2013 31

  I’ve learned my first Korean word: 18. Can someone help me with the syntax of 18? Do I say, “18 Tom,” or “Tom is an 18er,” or “Tom, 18 yourself?” Please give example sentences. Thanks, y’all.

• kangaji
  9:04 am on January 10th, 2013 32

  E 18 cotton Tom.
  Tom, E 18 gnome.
  18 K say key gnome cotton Tom.

• kangaji
  9:08 am on January 10th, 2013 33

  Eye She Tom. 18 row ma.

• Kangaji
  4:24 pm on January 11th, 2013 34

  VANK got McGraw Hill to acknowledge the East Sea in a geography textbook.

• Denny
  10:48 pm on January 11th, 2013 35

  Jackie Chan joins friend PSY and makes anti-American comments

  http://www.examiner.com/article/jackie-chan-anti-americanism-comments-spark-outrage

  Recent Jackie Chan anti-Americanism comments have gotten the “Rush Hour” star a wealth of criticism from many. Unbeknownst to many Americans, Jackie Chan is a strong supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. Lately, there has been much criticism over the censorship of a popular Chinese newspaper.

  On Jan. 10., the Washington Post reported on a Chinese interview in which Chan calls the United States “the most corrupt country in the world.” He also stated his anger with Chinese people that openly criticize their country. He then went on to say that he is very careful to only praise China when doing U.S. interviews.

• Glans
  5:40 pm on January 12th, 2013 36

  President Obama has undergone a fitness evaluation at a Pentagon clinic as part of his medical examination. The results will be released before the end of the month. Here’s the story at Reuters.

 

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