Musing on Idol and Aideul The word ``idol'' sounds like the Korean word ``ideul,'' which means ``children.'' The similarity of these two words struck me one night as I was watching a year-end television special wrapping up the year 2008 K-pop scene.
Who Shot My Santa? Days after Christmas, I am still stuck in it.
Disobedience With Soul Teaching is a sacred job, isn't it? A teacher should be respected on par with a king, and father. One should not step on even the teacher's shadow. At least this is what we were taught.
Lee-Obama Mismatch What would be the biggest challenge facing U.S. President Obama in dealing with North Korea?
Power and Corruption I differed with my wife on a specific issue late last year when then President Roh Moo-hyun was about to wrap up his five-year term. ``That can't be '' This was my reaction when we talked about the possibility of Roh's elder brother, Roh Geon-pye..
Turning Back the Clock A commission seeks to be the sole investigator in the explosion of Korean Air Flight 858 over Myanmar en route from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok in 1987. Ahn Byung-ook, president of the relevant truth and reconciliation commission, said that regardless of ..
WHINER Syndrome If you felt compelled to switch TV channels while watching Fulds, Wagoners, W. Bush and Paulson at least twice in the past week, you may be suffering from a new Wall Street-originated medical condition, which, in no likelihood, will sometime soon e..
Plant Trees, Not Bricks Life, at most times, feels like the fine art of striking up a working friendship with speed.
Let GM Go In March 2005, I felt agitated following reports on the last breath in the Terri Schiavo saga. Schiavo, a Floridian woman, was kept alive on a feeding tube in a persistent vegetative state for the previous 15 years.
Suicide Virus A day rarely passes by without reports of suicide these days. Last week alone, many people from an asset manager to a middle school student took their own lives.
Obama and Leadership of Integration In retrospect, he should have embraced his adversaries upon being elected. But he didn't. Rather, he first visited a newspaper company that had been friendly to him. His failure to show tolerance to enemies might have promised his failure from the ..
Fathers Regret For a year or so, it has almost become a habit of mine to step outside my apartment in the middle of the night and watch my neighborhood from the corridor.
Advent of Obama Doctrine The election of Barack Obama of the liberal Democratic Party as president of the United States has triggered speculation that South Korea's conservative Lee Myung-bak administration will have to soften its hard-line policy on communist North Korea.
Obamas 3/5 Victory Tears of joy, fist bumps for a union saved and high fives for a job well done The election of Barack Hussein Obama as 44th president of the United States is inspiring to all. As Obama said at Grand Park in Chicago a few days ago, his victory bel..
How Good a Cook Is Our President? I found a sign of President Lee Myung-bak's fatigue after eight months of national governance in the least expected place. It was on the cheeks of Lee's spokesman Lee Dong-kwan.
Shame on Officialdom The global financial panic looming over every corner of the world is eroding people's patience, including mine. Admittedly, I would not call myself one of the most patient people in the world. But some of the developments taking place in our public..
Fear Not but Repent, America! From Wall Street in New York to Main Street in Philadelphia to First Street in Washington, D.C., fear reigns. The stench of this fear is so strong that, with a smidgen of hyperbole, I would say that I can smell it from this side of the Pacific.
