Monday Korea- and Worldfarts

Tuesday (May 4th) is Mom's birthday; I won't be posting anything other than a little tribute to her on that day. Today, therefore, I'm combining the Monday Koreafarts and Tuesday Worldfarts to give you a little of everything. Apologies if I don't hit every single person on my blogroll; have been busy lately.

Koreafarts

As long as the baseball player gets the hits, we'll excuse his bizarre need to curl up into a little ball. IA also has before/after photos of the train disaster at Ryongchon.

The Marmot shows us an F-16 ripoff with some speculation about Kim's shopping habits. And hey, here's a surprise: foreign aid to Ryongchon doesn't seem to be reaching its destination. Also: a great piece on alternatives to the US-ROK alliance.

The Vulture wears a scarlet letter.

Mike Ferrin of Seeing Eye Blog seems to be back to blogging, praise Jesus. In a recent post, he claims the oppressed NK citizens' only true friend is Donald Rumsfeld. Mike gets some positively idiotic commentary for this post, including the claim that "hundreds of thousands" of people in the US are starving, and that US prisons (you know-- the ones with the weight rooms, TVs, etc.) are "gulags." Mike somehow stays civil through all this. He's got a cooler head than I do.

Over at Budae Chigae, a post on the Uri Party's cognitive dissonance. Charlie's got another good post on new ways for Korean parents to monitor their kids' computer habits. I can imagine husbands and wives monitoring each other, too. No privacy, no trust, no secrets, no nothing.

Hilarious post over at Jeff's re: "rolling roadblocks," i.e., fleets of girls, young ladies, and older adjummas who tend to walk four abreast (no pun intended, you sick bastards), nonchalantly blocking traffic and making no move to acknowledge anyone else's presence. I rarely have problems with these folk; I simply push through on the side, especially if I'm in a hurry. The thing that bugs the shit out of me-- and it happens at least twice a day-- is that SOME stupid asswipe right in front of me will stop without warning, look around indecisively, and then make a U-turn. This happens in the most obnoxious places: at the tops and bottoms of crowded stairways, in constricted corridors, and right before escalator platforms. I need to give a name to this behavior. Any ideas? Write in or leave a comment (Vile Vituperation, sidebar). Or write in to tell me how insensitive I am-- other expats get such complaints, so I want some, too.

Rathbone Press offers us a rousing rendition of "We Are the Dupes" and a fisking of another very bad PR campaign.

Dr. Larsen rebuts the pernicious meme that America has hegemonic interests on the peninsula.

Andi's moved in to her new place in Gunsan, and she's in love with it. She also tells us more about her weekend here.

It's all about the art at Wooj's.

Kathreb has an announcement, especially for all you Stanford fuckaz out there.

The Party Pooper tackles the nettlesome "Gay or Asian?" question.

A Georgia O'Keefe moment at Korea Life Blog.

Joel gracefully juxtaposes flowers, scatology, and food. The post right before that one seems to indicate he's got a scary, Hulk-like temper. Don't fuck with Joel.

And now...


Worldfarts

The biggest news, for me, is Dr. Vallicella's continued cleaning of my clock in his latest blog batch. I noticed, though, that a few of his rebuttals aren't impossible to answer (in fact, they left me scratching my head), so I'll try and get to those later this week. As usual, he points out where I go wrong, and like I said, I'm looking for free lessons in Western philo. I'm happy he seems to be taking my thoughts seriously enough to spend time grinding me into hamburger; he could just as easily have chosen a more skilled sparring partner to work over. I'll see if I can't rise to this latest challenge.

Check out Dan Darling's Winds of War.

When purging gets primal, there's no time to blog.

Nice Boston pics by Ryan, here, here, and here.

A very heartfelt, angry post by Tacitus, followed by plenty of reactions for and against the post, as usual. He's not happy with Bush-- and keep in mind he's a staunch Republican hawk.

Cobb remains wary of Kerry.

KBJ is a liiiiiittle bit too uptight about live theater. SNL hasn't been really funny for me since, oh, the 80s, but KBJ's complaint here, re: actors who crack up during a skit, only makes sense if they're cracking up all the time. That, friends, is what routinely happens in many Korean comedy skits and shows, and it's not that funny for me. Overall, I'd say the SNL folks are pretty good about staying professional. To me, that's what makes the occasional breakup funny.

I do agree, however, with KBJ's post on jingoism.

Kilgore writes:

I'm all for ridiculing fundamentalists and their blind belief in biblical inerrancy. But let's be cleverer about this than they are. If you want real ammunition for debating fundamentalists, use the inconsistencies in the four Gospel accounts of Easter morning, which I'll blog about some other time.

There's more than just Easter morning, Kilgore, though I'm sure you know this. Will be curious to read your entry. Kilgore also welds style and substance together here.

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