Category: Uncategorized

My name is 635.

Unhappy with the Chinese government? Be kind to the next Falun Gong activist you see. You don’t have to share their beliefs to support their right to practice them. Not direct enough for you? Then you could decide to attend a worldwide protest in front of Chinese Embassies and consulates worldwide on December 22nd. Our specific grievance is the Chinese government’s repatriations of North Korean refugees back to North Korea, where they face a grim fate. All of the protests...

Unhappy with the Chinese government? Be kind to the next Falun Gong activist you see. You don’t have to share their beliefs to support their right to practice them. Not direct enough for you? Then you could decide to attend a worldwide protest in front of Chinese Embassies and consulates worldwide on December 22nd. Our specific grievance is the Chinese government’s repatriations of North Korean refugees back to North Korea, where they face a grim fate. All of the protests...

Who knew? It turns out that my sister-in law is a talented photographer with an extraordinary sense of detail. Each photograph is a pixel of life in Korea; taken together, they form a surprisingly revealing picture of how it feels to live there. More here–look for the blue tabs to the right of the winter scene, click the third one down, and start scrolling. There must be hundreds of them. I intend to make a weekend tradition of putting the...

My name is 635.

My name is 635.

Who knew? It turns out that my sister-in law is a talented photographer with an extraordinary sense of detail. Each photograph is a pixel of life in Korea; taken together, they form a surprisingly revealing picture of how it feels to live there. More here–look for the blue tabs to the right of the winter scene, click the third one down, and start scrolling. There must be hundreds of them. I intend to make a weekend tradition of putting the...

Even Roh Moo-Hyun doesn’t see much point in having a summit with Kim Jong-Il. He probably reads this blog. Sunshine is fading into oblivion along with the failure of the North Korean state. By any measure of Machiavellian diplomacy, they should have sent Kim Jong Il to Seoul to whip up more “unification fever” by now. Their failure to exploit even those who would willingly support them speaks volumes about their current paralysis. Meanwhile, on the six-party front, even Richard...

North Korea has marked World AIDS Day by smugly announcing that it has zero cases. Other than mass starvation, a broken health care system, no reliable food supply, kids who are a foot shorter than their counterparts in the South, and sky-high infant mortality, their system has made the North Korean people extremely healthy. If there’s any truth to this report, it’s just a matter of time. There may not be, because after all, they tried to tell us there’s...

Hwang Jang Yop opposes the whole idea, according to this report. Earlier reports had suggested he might have been behind one. Either way, the North Koreans need a political alternative, but he’s not the man to lead it. North Korea deserves better than a geriatric splinter faction of the Workers’ Party.

North Korea says the U.S. has no right to unilaterally impose “red lines,” and that the lines themselves are a trigger for war. As opposed to them selling sensitive technologies to terrorists and their closest associates, which apparently isn’t. I have blogged before about how easy it would be for anyone to build a cruise missile. That applies to terrorists, too.

Japanese lawmakers are pushing for sanctions against North Korea. Nobody believes that Kim Jong Il has told the entire truth about the abductions. That will cause pain in North Korea–mainly to those who haven’t felt much of it so far.

Another news report on the U.N.’s meek demand to stop repatriating North Korean refugees.

Just how bad are things between the United States and South Korea these days? “As the talks went on, Mr. Powell stiffened. Mr. Yoon practically told him that Seoul would link the nuclear issue with the troop dispatch,” the official said. The New York Times reported that South Korea had told the United States it would not consider sending more troops to Iraq unless Washington made a concession to Pyeongyang. South Korean officials said later, however, that Mr. Yoon’s message...

Escaping North Korea is turning into an industry. How shrewd of China to arrest all the activists so that only coyotes remain.

You’re a foreigner living in a city where it’s legal for people to discriminate against you openly, and this is what you’re whining about? For G-d’s sake–if you want clean streets and orderly traffic, go live in frigging Wisconsin! Or didn’t you realize that you were going to live in a foreign country? Please tell me this reporter just got the story wrong.

So, who’s marginalized, again?

Bernie Kerik seems like a very good choice for Homeland Security, from what I gather of his history of doing things effectively. The BBC has the most interesting story about him, including the interesting detail that he has a half-Korean daughter from his time as an Army MP in South Korea. My time as a shink, relationship counselor, and personal consigliore to most of the USFK defense counsel has given me much understanding and acceptance of what young guys do...