Light Blogging for the Foreseeable Future
You’ve no doubt noticed the relative lack of postings in the last few months, and that trend is going to continue for the next few months. This is the collateral effect of good things happening in the family and work parts of my life. Unfortunately, as those responsibilities grow, they leave relatively less time for other things. So for the foreseeable future, my prime blogging time — my commute — will have to be spent reading and studying other things, and whatever time remains is taken up with Nerf duels with my kids. This isn’t the end of OFK, but it will mean that posting will be less frequent, and will be driven more by major events than minor ones. Thanks for continuing to stop by.
Congrats on the real life stuff.
Do you have any recommendations for those of us who will be looking for similar content elsewhere? I already keep track of anything in your rightmost sidebar as well as the Daily NK and the Chosun Ilbo, am I missing any good, publicly available, sources?
If you are reliant on the OFK side bar, then you are missing my recalcitrant site, which refuses to play with OFK. Only time will tell whether that is something you find you want to return to~
I have been using this blog as a sort of portal for all my Korea related reading yes.
I’ve run across your blog before while reading about North Korea, but you don’t seem to update it often enough for it to have become one of my regular stops. Not a conscious decision, and I’ll probably check it out more often now that Joshua is producing less content.
I have this page bookmarked for links now, so if nothing else I’ll be stumbling across it more frequently. Thank you for the tip, and for the blogs content.
Joshua: Congratulations on all the good things. Looking forward to reading your posts as your schedule permits.
Good luck, Joshua, and have fun. I learned a lot from your blog.
Utter & utter disgrace. We as consumers need our daily North Korea fix !
“Goodnight, you princes of Maine. You kings of New England.”
Now would be a good time for a major event like Kim Jong-il getting assasinated while in Russia, just as our Dear Leader goes on sabbatical! Best wishes to Joshua, we’ll miss your weekly musing and abusing.
No chance of finding an associate/guest blogger to fill the gaps? Post an inquiry, might get some qualified takers. Every government in Asia consciously permits the North Korean people to be sacrificed at the altar of regional stability, and if governments don’t care, mass media won’t care and the people sure as shit won’t care. We don’t have enough voices covering North Korea’s plight to be able to lose one and not notice the impact.
No, Adam, I have not yet done that.
I have planned out several posts (whoops, Mac OS Lion almost “corrected” that as “severe posts,” heh heh) for when I finished Laura Ling’s book. Since Euna Lee never sent me a free copy and it’s not yet available in the library, I haven’t obtained it yet.
The problem is, every time I have started to get through Laura Ling’s book, real life has unfortunately gotten in the way of finishing.
Kushibo, I would be very glad to send you my Euna Lee copy (when I am back in the office next week, currently on the way to Berlin), I have been wondering what to do with the thing. If you want, that is. I’m at cathcaaj@plu.edu e-mail wise.
The Ling book is deceptively dense! And I mean that!
BTW the Chinese ambassador in Pyongyang has been super active lately, with trips to Tibet and Ryanggang province in August — but I don’t think he showed up in the Northeast to accompany Kim Jong Il, which along with three or four almost abject letters of thanks to the absent Hu Jintao by KCNA for his permission and hospitality, I think points again to the improvised nature of the return.
But that didn’t stop the Chinese provincial cadre from plying the Dear Leader with that sweet Tonghua (yes, the original _Manchurian Candidate_ Chapter 3 brainwashing HQ!) wine before he went and met his son who was waiting for him just across the border from those tantalizingly close yet inaccessible Koguryo tombs in Ji’an!!!
In a final BTW, isn’t it great how Joshua’s “I’m not going to be doing much” tends to be at least twice as much than most people do when they _aren’t_ taking a break? It’s like he has tapped into the energies of Tangun
Lisa LIng gave kushibo a free copy of her and Laura’s book; he promised he’d give it a fair read; he still hasn’t finished it. Why would Euna Lee waste a free copy of her book on him? Now Adam Cathcart has offered kushibo his used copy.
Here’s one thing in Euna’s book that was different from what I expected. I had thought that going to the Tumen river was Mitch’s or Laura’s idea, and that Euna must have been reluctant. Actually it was Euna’s idea, and she had some difficulty getting Laura and then Mitch to agree to go with her. Unbeknownst to them, she went there the night before. She then woke up late and delayed their excursion to the river in the morning, so the sun was rising, and they were easily seen. The Ling Sisters’ book doesn’t deal with that issue and doesn’t blame Euna for what happened.
To Adam’s question, whether the Current team gained any data at all on the online sex trade, the answer seems to be that Laura and Euna destroyed as much of their data as they could on the day of their arrest, and that the North Korean authorities seized the remainder as evidence. We can read their books to see what they say about their interviews, but we’ll never be able to see the video record of those interviews.
Did my comment look like spam?
Hey Adam,
Your question kind of went different directions, but as to the online sex chat stuff, I know I’ve read a few articles about that occurring in China (I think with many of the customers being in SK), but I didn’t find any doing a quick search, maybe you’ll have better luck (but apparently not?). But I did find this one I remembered seeing something about now long ago: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/07/25/2011072500914.html
I don’t see what was objectionable in my comment, so I’m submitting it again.
Lisa Ling gave kushibo a free copy of her and Laura’s book; he promised he’d give it a fair read; he still hasn’t finished it. Why would Euna Lee waste a free copy of her book on him? Now Adam Cathcart has offered kushibo his used copy.
Here’s one thing in Euna’s book that was different from what I expected. I had thought that going to the Tumen river was Mitch’s or Laura’s idea, and that Euna must have been reluctant. Actually it was Euna’s idea, and she had some difficulty getting Laura and then Mitch to agree to go with her. Unbeknownst to them, she went there the night before. She then woke up late and delayed their excursion to the river in the morning, so the sun was rising, and they were easily seen. The Ling Sisters’ book doesn’t deal with that issue and doesn’t blame Euna for what happened.
To Adam’s question, whether the Current team gained any data at all on the online sex trade, the answer seems to be that Laura and Euna destroyed as much of their data as they could on the day of their arrest, and that the North Korean authorities seized the remainder as evidence. He can read their books to see what they say about their interviews, but he’ll never be able to see the video record of those interviews.
For some reason, my moderation filter doesn’t like you today.
Glans wrote:
Laura Ling’s copy did not go to waste. For starters, my mother read it, cover to cover, in about a day. She thought I was being too mean to the trio formerly known as The Stupogants, and she wanted me to read it as quickly as I could. In fact, she read the first several chapters to me while I was driving the two of us to Las Vegas to see my aunt.
Part of my slow read is also that I took notes as I read it, since I planned to talk about it later. This is the bane of grad students who like to read: having to report on what you’ve read sucks the fun out of it.
Anyway, Lisa Ling gave me the book so that I could see the other side, which I have done (I don’t recall that a review was part of the deal). I’m not entirely convinced, and I still have my reservations, but I have met that obligation.
Lisa Ling was very gracious in reaching out to me and allowing me to print her rebuttal to my comments on my blog, and then providing me the book.
I was speaking tongue-in-cheek about Euna Lee providing me one, but I will take Adam up on his offer.
Well, it looks like my comment went down the toilet again. Joshua’s filter must think I’m a security risk.
That rascal kushibo outwitted Lisa Ling. He promised he’d give her book a fair read, but he didn’t say by whom. His mother read it!
Do not ascribe devious motives to my work overload-induced slow rate of reading. In fact, Lisa Ling knew that my mother would read the book first. (And she also knew that my mother was a fan, via Oprah). 🙂