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Excuse the long absence and the long rant. I meant to announce my absence in advance, before my move last week, but our Internet service was cut before I expected. I just bought my first house, and since then have been single-handedly helping Home Depot and Lowe’s meet their quarterly sales estimates. Last week was full of heavy lifting, moving, painting, cutting, chiseling, sanding, drywalling, prying, painting, and of course, shopping. Like many of you, I’ve been in a deep...

Excuse the long absence and the long rant. I meant to announce my absence in advance, before my move last week, but our Internet service was cut before I expected. I just bought my first house, and since then have been single-handedly helping Home Depot and Lowe’s meet their quarterly sales estimates. Last week was full of heavy lifting, moving, painting, cutting, chiseling, sanding, drywalling, prying, painting, and of course, shopping. Like many of you, I’ve been in a deep...

What brought me to this cause was my offense that that oxymoron called the “world community” abets genocide. Being an American soldier brought me to Korea, but I can’t deny that being Jewish played some role in bringing me to feel so strongly about it. Don’t Jews have a particular historical responsibility to act at a time like this? It’s especially true now that we have read David Hawk’s report on the concentration camps, the BBC reports on gas chambers,...

Rebecca at NKZone was challenged on her estimate that 1,000 people were there. While I’d put the number closer to 500-700, there were clearly hundreds of people at the Capitol at the end of the march. Even a thousand people is not a large demonstration by Washington standards, but it’s significant in light of where the nascent movement for human rights in North Korea was a year ago–there wasn’t one. The single most impressive factor was the youthfulness of the...

What brought me to this cause was my offense that that oxymoron called the “world community” abets genocide. Being an American soldier brought me to Korea, but I can’t deny that being Jewish played some role in bringing me to feel so strongly about it. Don’t Jews have a particular historical responsibility to act at a time like this? It’s especially true now that we have read David Hawk’s report on the concentration camps, the BBC reports on gas chambers,...

Rebecca at NKZone was challenged on her estimate that 1,000 people were there. While I’d put the number closer to 500-700, there were clearly hundreds of people at the Capitol at the end of the march. Even a thousand people is not a large demonstration by Washington standards, but it’s significant in light of where the nascent movement for human rights in North Korea was a year ago–there wasn’t one. The single most impressive factor was the youthfulness of the...

I first heard this at the rally, but I had to see it to believe it. North Korea is praising “heroes” in Ryongchon who ran into burning or collapsing buildings–not to save their wives and kids–but to save portraits of the Great Leader, Dear Leader, and Dogs Playing Pool (not really, but wouldn’t that be a better story?). First reaction: as if. Second reaction: even the North Korean people have to quaking with quiet fury when they feel the indignity...

Between all of the activities of this day, a full-time job, a family, and closing on a house, it’s been a very busy week. Yes, I was there. There were certainly hundreds of people there, maybe a thousand. I will plead exhaustion for now and just convey a few brief impressions: 1. In spite of 9/11, it’s still astonishingly easy to walk into a Senate office building and personally deliver your views to the most powerful people on earth. 2....

I first heard this at the rally, but I had to see it to believe it. North Korea is praising “heroes” in Ryongchon who ran into burning or collapsing buildings–not to save their wives and kids–but to save portraits of the Great Leader, Dear Leader, and Dogs Playing Pool (not really, but wouldn’t that be a better story?). First reaction: as if. Second reaction: even the North Korean people have to quaking with quiet fury when they feel the indignity...

I first heard this at the rally, but I had to see it to believe it. North Korea is praising “heroes” in Ryongchon who ran into burning or collapsing buildings–not to save their wives and kids–but to save portraits of the Great Leader, Dear Leader, and Dogs Playing Pool (not really, but wouldn’t that be a better story?). First reaction: as if. Second reaction: even the North Korean people have to quaking with quiet fury when they feel the indignity...

Between all of the activities of this day, a full-time job, a family, and closing on a house, it’s been a very busy week. Yes, I was there. There were certainly hundreds of people there, maybe a thousand. I will plead exhaustion for now and just convey a few brief impressions: 1. In spite of 9/11, it’s still astonishingly easy to walk into a Senate office building and personally deliver your views to the most powerful people on earth. 2....

At this moment, as you read this, young children in Ryongchon and Sinuiju are dying prolonged, agonized deaths. Their parents sit beside their kids in helplessness and despair, watching them die. And what are their government’s leaders doing to respond to the crisis and ease their suffering? They’re all at the theater, watching creepy mass games. Meanwhile, truckloads of aid and busloads of doctors and nurses are blocked at the border. The risk of political infection is apparently a greater...

At this moment, as you read this, young children in Ryongchon and Sinuiju are dying prolonged, agonized deaths. Their parents sit beside their kids in helplessness and despair, watching them die. And what are their government’s leaders doing to respond to the crisis and ease their suffering? They’re all at the theater, watching creepy mass games. Meanwhile, truckloads of aid and busloads of doctors and nurses are blocked at the border. The risk of political infection is apparently a greater...

There is a link to a story on the NK rejection of South Korean aid here, which contains a slide show of photos of Ryongchon. Warning: this is heartbreaking stuff, including many horribly burned children, many of whom appear to have been blinded. What’s more, you have to know that the most critical hours for medical treatment may already have passed. In other words, the paranoia and heartlessness of the government means that the chance has already been lost to...

The Beeb is reporting more about the official North Korean response to the Ryongchon disaster. Nothing shocking. 1. As thousands of children lie suffering–many of them blind–on metal file cabinets for lack of hospital beds, the North Koreans are refusing to allow international medical aid that might put the victims in contact with sympathetic foreigners. A disproportionate number of them are children. One must conclude that their suffering means nothing to their leaders; even South Korean aid–much of it raised...

There is a link to a story on the NK rejection of South Korean aid here, which contains a slide show of photos of Ryongchon. Warning: this is heartbreaking stuff, including many horribly burned children, many of whom appear to have been blinded. What’s more, you have to know that the most critical hours for medical treatment may already have passed. In other words, the paranoia and heartlessness of the government means that the chance has already been lost to...

The Beeb is reporting more about the official North Korean response to the Ryongchon disaster. Nothing shocking. 1. As thousands of children lie suffering–many of them blind–on metal file cabinets for lack of hospital beds, the North Koreans are refusing to allow international medical aid that might put the victims in contact with sympathetic foreigners. A disproportionate number of them are children. One must conclude that their suffering means nothing to their leaders; even South Korean aid–much of it raised...

Norbert Vollertsen, who has personal knowledge of the state of North Korean medical facilities near Ryongchon, and who knows first-hand of North Korea�s lack of facilities and expertise for treating burn victims, has written in with his comments on the rail disaster there. Dr. Vollertsen, as some may know, once received a friendship medal from the North Korean government for donating a skin graft for a young North Korean girl who was severely burned. �The nearby hospitals in Sinuiju and...