Opinion - The Korea Times

Newspapers forever

By Tom Plate This is an age when digital media of all sorts are more and more the predominant news source and their childlike energy, as if pulsating for constant attention, and their unapologetic insouciance, especially for facts and realities, can make newspapers seem as dated as old television reruns.It may seem inappropriate and indeed ungracious to wish to say this on the special occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Khaleej Times. But it has to be said, especially if we want invaluable newspapers like this one to avoid the fate of the dinosaur.Particular newspapers can be special for particular reasons. The French newspaper Le Monde for its historic political analyses. The China Daily for its rise on the radar screen along with the gigantic country whose government it reflects. The New York Times for its committed internationalism while still based in Manhattan, the locus of that most self-centered of all cities. And ― yes ― the Khaleej Times for its - shall-we-say - serendipitous location at what looks more and more like turning into the historic future center of the ge

Apr 30, 2013By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Stop playing the same old game

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― In his recent sprint up to North Korea, former pro basketball star Dennis Rodman may have come across to the world as totally ridiculous in the role of a self-appointed emissary for peninsular peace. But somehow his effort did make sense. After all, by accepted standards of nation-state behavior, that country itself comes across as absurd. Doesn’t a Rodman just sort of fit in there? One never knows: When the ridiculous meets the absurd, something unexpected might result. What might that be? Perhaps the young leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, will seize his current moment in the Rodman-engineered world media spotlight and agree to revive his tragically impoverished poor and awfully governed country.  The DPRK simply is not working. Now might just be the time for a big change of direction.  Not only is Kim in the first phase of his leadership, succeeding his late father, but so too is his counterpart in South Korea.  That’s Park Geun-hye, the first woman preside

Mar 10, 2013By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Now is the time ― but China is not the crime

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― For the U.S. and Asia, now is the time, if ever there was a time. As President Barack Hussein Obama moved officially into his 2nd term, presumably the historic “pivot” to Asia in U.S foreign policy will proceed briskly apace. That would be good. There is no time to dawdle.If Asia is not rising, as virtually every expert says, then the rest of us must be sinking. The statistics out of Asia are daunting. Here are a few. Before too long China will have the world’s largest economy. Perhaps even before that, India will have the largest population. Indonesia, oft neglected by the West, has a higher per-capita income than India and ― along with Turkey ― far more clout in the Islamic world.Pakistan, a nuclear power as well as an Islamic nation, may be coming apart ― as Obama well knows. Japan is still the world’s third largest economy and may have the second most modernized military (people forget this). And the Japanese are getting weary of playing nice with Beijing. From a mutually profitable commercial, trading and business relationship, t

Jan 25, 2013By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Third way exit

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― Crusty but brilliant Lee Kuan Yew, for decades modern Singapore’s founding leader, is on record as admitting he is anything but a religious believer in one-citizen, one-vote democracy. He thinks the world can do better. He puts it this way: “I do not believe that one-man, one-vote, in either the U.S. format or the British format or the French format, is the final position. I mean, human society will change over the years.”Okay ― but will it change for the better? Will the world someday look back on what disappoints Lee as in fact the best we could do in terms of political organization? Or do we revert to some kind of new-wave Leviathan techno-authoritarianism? Or do we somehow come up with something better?This is no academic question. A lot of people are taking a hard second look at the angelic claims traditionally made for electoral democracy.Consider that Singapore itself soared in a matter of mere decades to become one of the highest per-capita-income countries under the strong-willed leadership of a very dominant political party led by

Jan 11, 2013By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Torture in the plot

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― The new movie about the successful hunt to find and kill Osama bin Laden will surely cop a few Academy Awards. It is well done and worth seeing.But this is not intended to be a movie review. Rather, ``Zero Dark Thirty’’ raises difficult issues about the morality of America’s campaign against violent Islamic radicalism. In this riveting new release, the use of torture by CIA and military interrogators is central to the narrative. One captured al-Qaida operative is severely manhandled for what seems as long as a full quarter of the show.Despite what you may have heard or read, the movie is ambiguous ― or at least murky ― about the link between the revelations obtained from the U.S. torturers and their essential relevance to the successful Navy Seals search-and-destroy operation on bin Laden. But the inclusion of torture scene after torture scene triggered outrage from the right wing of American politics (that none of this gruesome stuff really happened) as well as from the left wing of our politics (but that if it did, it was not effective be

Dec 28, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

America's Lone Ranger culture

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― It would not be hard to convince many of us who live in the West Coast of the painfully obvious need for severe gun-restrictions laws and attendant gun-control law-enforcement.  We’re easy. California is just that way.  Why recently, we actually voted to increase our taxes to support our schools! Imagine.Call us crazy.Once upon a time, in fact, California’s leading daily newspaper had the audacity to publish a series of full-page, richly detailed, obnoxiously sweeping editorials (or leaders) demanding national gun-control legislation and enforcement.  The bottom line of the prominent daily’s recommendation was that American culture was ― frankly ― just too immature (adolescent, really) to permit official sanction to firearm licentiousness ― and that comprehensive curbs on possession were required to maximize public safety.This was the “powerful” Los Angeles Times in the early 1990s ― fully two decades ago. But you can see how un-influential the paper was, on this contentious issue at least! But it said the right t

Dec 21, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

`Asia pivot' and Islamic challenge

By Tom PlateLOS ANGELES ― President Barack Obama is now visiting Southeast Asia and this is a very good thing. The region is becoming more significant by the month. U.S. policy is said to be in the process of ``pivoting’’ to Asia after decades of preoccupation with Europe. This pivotal moment arrives, shall we say, not a moment too soon.Greedy as I am, of course, for such visits to Asia, I am slightly sad he will grace only three countries. Burma, Thailand and Cambodia get the president’s blessing, deservedly; but not always-troubled Philippines or strategically vital Indonesia, much less tiny but brilliant Singapore. Taken all together, the region’s population comes in at about 600 million, half of which is Muslim.America especially needs extra focus on Indonesia, where Obama once lived (ages 6-10), and where he paid a triumphant visit in 2010. This country’s population of about 245 million makes it the fourth largest on the face of the earth, and since about 90 percent of these Indonesians are Muslim, it is the country with the largest Islamic populati

Nov 18, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Sad and unnecessary death of Newsweek

By Tom PlateLos Angeles ― One way or the other, a magazine needs to stand for something special ― otherwise, who cares?As a once-young journalist I took in this maxim of magazining from the late Clay Felker, who in the seventies pushed New York to the forefront by making the case, week after weekly issue, that New York was one heckuva crazy wonderful impossible necessary place to live.People loved it.For decades giant TIME Magazine enjoyed a monumental position in the media world precisely because it, too, stood for something. It was that the American establishment actually knew what it was doing and one could see that just by admiring the work product: the extraordinary “American Century,” as it was labeled.People loved it.But then TIME started to lose it when it stood far too firmly in support of the American establishment on the Vietnam War controversy. Half the country developed doubts and inside of that huge niche Newsweek, with its anti-war reporting, carved out its circulation comfort zone. In the seventies and eighties TIME and Newsweek began aligning one-two

Oct 30, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

I was right — unfortunately

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― This column probably will get obnoxious. At least I hope so. Delightfully, it? about things I said would happen and, guess what? They happened. You could look it up: The judgments enumerated, in one way or the other, have appeared over the years in columns going back to 1996. So there ― and if you cannot stand my smug recounting of my utterly flat-out predictions or general clear-headed inclinations, I? chuck this one and flip over to the sports or fashion section. There? no theme to the topics on this (admittedly short) list. They simply concern unsolicited advice, which had only the world followed exactly as I prescribed, would have avoided much unhappiness. Oh, why don? you all ever listen?! Consider the general subject of world financial stability. (This is really important?) To simplify (always my inclination) ― you can put a lot of the blame on those sharpies in Armani suits who the dirty deals behind the hedges of the derivatives and ``short?funds and so on. They absolutely cannot be trusted (because they are greed-driven) and

Aug 27, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Thaksin seems to be everywhere

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Thaksin Shinawatra is undoubtedly the most controversial politician ever to become prime minister of Thailand, an oft-ignored country in Southeast Asia with a population and landmass greater than Britain or Italy. (But who besides a Thai knows this?) Elected several times in national elections deemed to be relatively fair and open, he was pushed out by a sadly misconceived military coup in 2006 and has been working out of his exile in Dubai since then in an effort to return. The energetic 63-year-old telecommunications pioneer doesn’t let grass grow under his feet, however, and this month he has been bouncing around the United States looking for love among Thai exile groups, meeting with the usual VIPS (the Henry Kissingers and so on), and trying to make new friends. Except for one anti-Thaksin demonstration in Los Angeles, it has been smooth going here in the U.S. One stop was at Loyola Marymount University, where faculty, students and administrators met him for dinner or over tea ― (assuming they were at least 21) wine. Thaksin, though fam

Aug 21, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Read more

Newspapers forever

Stop playing the same old game

Now is the time ― but China is not the crime

Third way exit

Torture in the plot

America's Lone Ranger culture

`Asia pivot' and Islamic challenge

Sad and unnecessary death of Newsweek

I was right — unfortunately

Thaksin seems to be everywhere

Top 5 stories

Tom Plate

Read more

Newspapers forever

Stop playing the same old game

Now is the time ― but China is not the crime

Third way exit

Torture in the plot

America's Lone Ranger culture

`Asia pivot' and Islamic challenge

Sad and unnecessary death of Newsweek

I was right &#8212; unfortunately

Thaksin seems to be everywhere

Top 5 stories

I was right — unfortunately