That'll teach you to make international phone calls

It's easy to forget that North Korea's only 40 kilometers away from safe, benign Seoul. Then you read something like this:

North Korea is using public executions to intimidate its citizens and has imposed restrictions on long distance calls to block the spread of news about rising food shortages, the U.N. investigator on human rights in the reclusive nation said Thursday.

The rest of the story.

He's very well-read, it's quite well known

Lee Siegel writes about the influence of reading classic literature in the books section of the NYT.

Somehow, we’ve been sold a bill of goods about how literature empowers us. But the idea that great literature can improve our lives in any way is a con as old as culture itself.

Take the power back

I'm really late to this, but it's too awesome not to blog. Cops shut down Rage Against the Machine at the RNC, so they did an acapella set for the crowd outside.

More on the Kundera case

A longer story in the IHT today provides more background -- and more speculation -- about the allegations that Milan Kundera ratted out a spy to communist Czechoslovakia.

"The reality is that the totalitarian regime was constructed in such a way that 99 percent of people cooperated in one way or another, and the Kundera case helps them to feel morally absolved, like they are the good guys and he was one of the baddies," Pehe said.

Many historians have found the evidence wanting. The policeman mentioned in the secret police report identifying Kundera is dead, while Kundera's signature is nowhere on the document.

There are trolls and then there are just plain assholes

No one should have to read something like this. The Korea Times has terrible judgment about what to put into their newspaper and if I was an English teacher I would cancel my subscription chigum.

Unfortunately, most native English speakers make no attempt to learn Korean; and even if they did, they probably could not, anyway. Look around you. Does the typical English native teacher strike you as being someone who is of high sophistication? Not! The sad fact is that the typical native teacher graduated near the bottom of his/her class from a lower-tiered university, and probably could not hold down anything better than a minimum wage job in his/her home country. The creme de la creme do not come here, I am sorry to say.

"The most ferocious fighting since the Korean War"

An eight part video series of the fighting in Afghanistan from embedded reporter Ben Anderson. Top tracks include "This guy lives for firing his RPG" and "Nothing like a little opium to get you ready for a firefight." Watch it here.

Where'd Russia go?

What if McCain had a heart attack from caring too much about his friends? Enter the Oval Office with Palin in charge.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Lying

This reads to me like Kundera's hiding something.

The allegations could diminish Mr. Kundera’s moral stature as a spokesman, however enigmatic, against totalitarianism’s corrosion of daily life.

The reclusive Mr. Kundera vehemently denied the account.

“I object in the strongest manner to these accusations, which are pure lies,” he said in a statement released by his French publisher, Gallimard.

In a rare interview on Monday with the Czech CTK news agency, Mr. Kundera also accused the news media of committing “the assassination of an author.”

That's pretty reactionary, defensive language.

North Korea's Octopussy

Like something out of a James Bond novel, the North Korean woman who seduced multiple S. Korean military officers, spread propaganda, and did other shady, spy-like things has been sentenced to prison.

Investigators have also accused her of scheming to murder intelligence agents using poison-tipped needles, though the plot did not go ahead.

Take the debate to the corner bar

Columnist Jim Shea has a suggestion to liven up the next presidential debate -- have it in a bar.

The candidates want to relate to Joe Six-Pack? This is where he hangs out, along with Joe Twelve-Pack, Frankie Foreclosed, Jimmy Jobless and all the rest of the blue-collar voters the candidates want to impress with their regularness.

(If you're in Korea, the debates start at 10 a.m. on Thursday the 16th.)

A Cartoon

Mr. Fish

Anarchy in the S.K.

Korea Herald reporter Bae Hyun-jung put together a greatest hits of the most absurd courtroom moments in recent months. One of my favorite stories I've read since working for the paper.

We set controls for the heart of the sun, one of the ways that we show our age

Did a little disco dance for the Korea Herald hyping LCD Soundsystem coming to town tonight. Read it here.

UPDATE: The event was poorly organized -- oversold, a clusterfuck at the doors, and then understaffed at the bar -- but the music was good. They played for 3 and a half hours. My legs are still sore, and even though Murphy and Mahoney didn't play any LCD, the lyric "I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of life" is running through my head.

LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends"

We're gonna need a bigger clock

The digital counter that marks the U.S. debt has run out of digits.

The more I seek the more I'm sought

I like the sincerity of this.

Joe Pug "Hymn #101"