Monthly Archive: June, 2005

Story here, regarding the mass-mobilization of city-dwellers to the countryside. And yes, the floor is open for suggested captions. [S]oldiers and other citizens have now been mobilized to help out in rural areas, with armband-wearing police officers going around towns and cities hauling off to the farms anyone who appears to have nothing to do. Those taken to the farms are freed only after they secure a certificate that records how much work they have done. This is starting to...

I sometimes have moments when I feel that this site is a stimulating conversation among friends that will never really amount to much. In fact, I’m having one of them now. When the intelligentsia that claims to speak for world opinion can’t distinguish between a gas chamber and fart in a crowded elevator, I tend to stare through the screen of my monitor, like Sisyphus looking past the stone, up an insurmountably steep grade of illogic. My latest such moment...

From the Joongang Ilbo: The head of a group that advocates rights for North Korean abductees said yesterday that the identity of 12 South Koreans being held captive in the North has been ascertained. . . . The list includes former special agents trained to infiltrate the North, former South Korean soldiers and kidnapped South Korean fishermen. Also included was a South Korean spy who had been sent North to bomb a radio station in Kaesong. How times have changed....

I sometimes have moments when I feel that this site is a stimulating conversation among friends that will never really amount to much. In fact, I’m having one of them now. When the intelligentsia that claims to speak for world opinion can’t distinguish between a gas chamber and fart in a crowded elevator, I tend to stare through the screen of my monitor, like Sisyphus looking past the stone, up an insurmountably steep grade of illogic. My latest such moment...

From the Joongang Ilbo: The head of a group that advocates rights for North Korean abductees said yesterday that the identity of 12 South Koreans being held captive in the North has been ascertained. . . . The list includes former special agents trained to infiltrate the North, former South Korean soldiers and kidnapped South Korean fishermen. Also included was a South Korean spy who had been sent North to bomb a radio station in Kaesong. How times have changed....

Another sign that famine may be returning to North Korea, from today’s New York Times: To combat growing food shortages, the North Korean government is sending millions of city dwellers to work on farms each weekend, largely to transplant rice, according to foreign aid workers. “The staff that work for us, the staff that work in the ministries, are going out to help farmers,” said Richard Ragan, director of World Food Program operations in Pyongyang, referring to North Koreans who...

I admit it’s newsworthy, but how newsworthy does it have to be when there’s a very real risk that printing a news story can get people killed and advance the plans of murderers? That’s my question on the NY Times publication of fine-point details of how the CIA moves high-value terrorist captures from place to place. I was just starting to think, “it’s as if the Times felt this was a distant and irrelevant brushfire war.” Naturally then, James Lileks...

The E.U. Constitution has taken a severe beating at the Dutch polls. This follows the defeat of a similar referendum in the French polls. This probably means the end of Franco-German plans to gain control over a united Europe’s foreign and defense policies for the foreseeable future. Given France’s diplomatic and military support for China of late, this is probably good news for the people of North Korea and China. It may also spell an end to a suspicious EU...

What the Arab Street Really Thinks. The answers surprised me. There may still be hope.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations: They’re starting to fire people over OFF. It seems strange, to say the least, that Kofi Annan is firing other people. Also, I invite your commendation for refraining from cheap references to guillotines and well-oiled machines.

Another sign that famine may be returning to North Korea, from today’s New York Times: To combat growing food shortages, the North Korean government is sending millions of city dwellers to work on farms each weekend, largely to transplant rice, according to foreign aid workers. “The staff that work for us, the staff that work in the ministries, are going out to help farmers,” said Richard Ragan, director of World Food Program operations in Pyongyang, referring to North Koreans who...

I admit it’s newsworthy, but how newsworthy does it have to be when there’s a very real risk that printing a news story can get people killed and advance the plans of murderers? That’s my question on the NY Times publication of fine-point details of how the CIA moves high-value terrorist captures from place to place. I was just starting to think, “it’s as if the Times felt this was a distant and irrelevant brushfire war.” Naturally then, James Lileks...

The E.U. Constitution has taken a severe beating at the Dutch polls. This follows the defeat of a similar referendum in the French polls. This probably means the end of Franco-German plans to gain control over a united Europe’s foreign and defense policies for the foreseeable future. Given France’s diplomatic and military support for China of late, this is probably good news for the people of North Korea and China. It may also spell an end to a suspicious EU...

What the Arab Street Really Thinks. The answers surprised me. There may still be hope.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations: They’re starting to fire people over OFF. It seems strange, to say the least, that Kofi Annan is firing other people. Also, I invite your commendation for refraining from cheap references to guillotines and well-oiled machines.

In one of its many ill-considered decisions of the last decade, the United Nations responded to the attempted extermination of Bosnia’s Muslims by imposing an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict. It was a classic of moral, economic, and military equivalence leading to horrific results. On side was a large, mechanized army that controlled a massive industry for manufacturing and exporting arms, and which it was using in an unequal battle to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocents....

A Last Memorial Day Thought: It will always be a day of gratitude for me, too. Before I left Korea in 2002, I had asked for an assignment in Germany, and was initially told that I would be sent there. Like most things the Army promises you, the assignment fell through (after my wife and I had spent two months studying German). Many people in my branch who were assigned to Germany were later sent to Iraq. As the spirits...

Then again, the Administration’s “other options” might be more along these lines. Thanks to Art Rush for forwarding the link.