Category Opinion
The John Galt, Zombie Hunter Fantasy
Let’s do a quick compare and contrast. I’ve got two hyper-famous basketball players in mind. Player A, from his highschool days on, has been known for teamwork. I don’t mean this in the sense of some nauseatingly inspirational cliche either, I mean there are articles by people with PhDs analyzing Player A’s abiding psychological […]
Elected Dictators
Just seven years ago, we had a major push towards what was then called the Unitary Executive. This Bush era doctrine (actually older, but that’s not important for this discussion) holds that the president is entirely in control of all executive functions. It is, in essence, a way to undermine the separation of powers. Rove […]
Osama bin Laden, A Retrospective
I teach a class on English-American culture at Mokwon University. I wrote the textbook, I chose the topics, I designed the curriculum – this class is as much mine as any class can be. What’s interesting is that, even with all this design and predetermination, I learn something new almost every lecture. Today, my students […]
The Cave-beast
Most of us are civilized. We open doors for old people and self-deprecate so that everyone feels at ease. We drink whiskey on the rocks because it’s crude to drink from the bottle and always in moderation because it’s even less refined to lose control. We turn off lights in other people’s offices because we want […]
A Collaboration With “Unload and Unwind”
I had an interesting discussion with “Unload and Unwind’s” Jenni about social class. Let me know what you think. I said: “I am curious about your class. You said you identified mostly by social class – before anyway. How did you perceive people from the lower classes, particularly ambitious ones?” She said: “Sadly I didn’t perceive […]
What it Means to Be Weak
Korea is obsessed with development. It attaches the term “development” to almost all of its official endeavors. Corrupt political systems are not unfair, they are undeveloped. Gender equality is desirable mostly in the context that it represents the development of Korean society. Social equality is not so wonderful on its own, but as a sign […]
The Taste of Life
This is the script for my third Toastmasters’ speech. In Korea, there is no equivalent to Western idioms about flavor. If, for example, you call a Korean person “very sweet” in Korean, they will either think you misspoke or conclude you have some unresolved issues with cannibalism. I thought it would be interesting to use […]
인생의 맛
3번째 토스트마스터스 연설 각본입니다. 제생각에는 음식과 인생은 비슷합니다. 둘다 행복의 원천입니다. 음식의 종류는 많고 인생종류도 많습니다. 음식처럼, 인생에도 유효기간 이있습니다. 미국 사람들은 성공을 세이버리 맛이라고 말합니다. 우리 속담에서는 패배는 쓴 맛이고 실망은 신 맛이라고합니다. 튼튼한 사람들은 짜고 착한 사람들은 달콤합니다. 하지만 모든 사람은 인상이라는 맛을 맛볼 수 없습니다. (멈춤) 테디 루세벨트는 저의 […]
Wayfarer’s Challenge
This is an article I wrote for A Holistic Journey. South Korea was, and still is, a means of escape for me. On a practical level, it offered me a ticket out of my depressing neighborhood in Nevada (U.S.) with the meth lab across the street. On a slightly higher level, it released the […]
Chosen People
There are a few spots on earth that seem to suck, all the time, every year. Places known primarily for depressing, vaguely anonymous news stories about so an so rebel group blowing up buses, such and such government dropping cluster bombs on schools, everyone throwing rocks at each other and frothing at the mouth. I […]
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