Korea and Peak Oil

It could get rough for a country "which imports all of its energy needs from overseas" — Korea Braces for Oil Shock. Last night I talked with a graduate student from my university's Eco-friendly Catalysis and Energy Laboratory. He said his lab-mates incessantly discuss Peak Oil.

Praying for Ted Kennedy

"We are asking people to pray for his immortal soul," says Fr. Thomas Euteneuer — Pro-Life Movement Offers Sen. Kennedy Prayers and Forgiveness as He Faces Potentially Fatal Brain Tumor. Here's where the senator stood in 1971:

While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life... Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain right which must be recognized - the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

Requiem Mass for Bishop Paul Tep-im Sotha

His Excellency died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge — After 33 years, Cambodians recall anniversary of murdered bishop for the first time. He was not alone: "Church records say Cambodia had 65,000 Catholics in 1970, but only 1,000 or so Cambodian Catholics were alive when Vietnamese troops forced the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979. Foreign missionaries were deported, and no Cambodian priests or nuns in the country survived."

Pengzhou Catholic Seminary

South Korea's New Bioethics Law

The Church bears witness against it — Church: no to bioethics law, it permits sale of human eggs.

The World Day of Prayer for the Church in China

A remider that it is tomorrow — In China the Church is getting ready for the World Day of Prayer in union with the Pope.

Kumamoto's Rota

I reported on Jikei Hospital's anonymous drop-off for abandoned babies, based on the medieval Europen rota, when it opened a year ago Rota Nipponica. A few days later, I reported on the "rather sad start" it got off to when a father put his three-year-old son in the box — Rota Nipponica Update. Today, a report of its first year — Japan "Stork Baby" hospital collects 17 babies.

Injecting Babies With Mercury

Lewis Regenstein asks on of the most important questions of our times — Vaccines, Mercury, and Autism – Is There a Link? Reminds the author, "What has been largely overlooked in this debate is the well known and extreme toxicity of mercury, a preservative used in most childhood vaccines and flu shots, known for hundreds of years to be toxic to nerve cells, and especially harmful to the minds of developing children."

Rastafahrenheit

It might not be 96° in The Shade just yet here in Pohang, but whenever the mercury rises, the classic by Third World pops in my head. Learn the lovely chorus, and then try singing "33°C in the shade." Sounds pretty stupid, huh? But the thought experiment validates everything I've ever said about the metric system — Metric Madness, Glorious Fahrenheit, The Axis of Anti-Metrication, Metric Tyranny Comes to Korea, Korea Goes Metric, The Return of the Nip, Down with the Metric System! Long Live the English Imperial System!, Metric News, and Dystopias and Metric Measures.

Down With the Korea National Oil Corporation!

"The central government said it will provide diesel at cheaper prices than gasoline, so I switched from gasoline to a diesel-fueled car, but the situation is totally reversed," said Sung Bang-hyun, a 60-year-old Seoul resident, quoted in this article — Diesel prices pass gasoline at the nation's pumps.

I drive diesel, too, and chose diesel for economic reasons. I have seen the cost of filling my tank jump from less than fifty to more than ninety dollars in less than four years, but never once did it occur to me that the government was in any way responsible for its price, except for making it more expensive with taxes.

I guess Mr. Sung has a point, since it is the Korea National Oil Corporation's iron fist, not Adam Smith's invisible hand, that is manipulates fuel markets here. But how much trust can be placed in an organization that just five months ago assured us that "it will be difficult in the foreseeable future for people to see oil prices beyond $100" — "Is the Era of $100 per Barrel Really Coming?"

Korean Race Suicide

It continues unabated, a evdidenced by these two stories today — S.Korea's Birthrate Still Lowest in the World and As Korea ages, suicides rise.

A year-and-a-half ago, I quoted the pseudonymous Asia Times Online columnist "Spengler," with whom I often disagree, on this theme — Whoredom and Race Suicide. Said he:

The collapse of traditional society has brought about a collapse of birth rates across cultures. Cultures that fail to reproduce themselves by definition are failed cultures, for the simple reason that they will cease to exist before many generations have passed.

South Korea's is a failed culture, at least according to the Spenglerian standard. Living here, I see little to counter the claim. I wrote about some of the failings of modern Korean society in this piece for The Seoul Times last year — O Korea, Turn Back to the Tao.

Korean mothers, 80% of whom do not work outside the home, are unwilling to have more than 1.2 children. It gets uglier. Prostitution in South Korea "is big business, accounting for $20 billion, or 4.1 percent of the nation's total gross domestic product in 2002, just behind agriculture at 4.4 percent." It is also one of the country's most rewarded professions (see Room Salon Girls’ Salaries Investigated), and many young ladies forego marriage to reap its financial benefits, thus exacerbating the birth dearth. Again, Spengler:

Prostitution is a form of psychic suicide; writ large, it is a manifestation of the national death-wish, the hideous recognition that the world no longer requires Ukrainians or Moldovans.

Or Koreans, it would seem. Say what you will about America, we have a replacement birthrate of 2.1 and few of our women see whoredom as a viable career choice, and almost none of us would even think "the world no longer requires" Americans. Quite the opposite, in fact, for better or for worse.

A Day in the Life of Ahn Myong Chol

The Vice President of Network Against North Korean Gulags and former political prison guard gives a chilling account of the DPRK's gulag archipelago — "Gulag Inmates Are to Be Killed after Reunification." Most horrifying is the "forced labor until death" policy and how whole families are sent to prison under "Kim Il Sung’s instruction on 'Terminating three generations of traitors.'"

Serbian Day in Korea

"The Embassy would like to invite you to come and enjoy this unique opportunity to experience Serbian culture at the dreamlike surroundings of Namiseom" this upcoming Saturday — Serbian National Day at Namiseom. The article describes the island as "famous for its untouched nature and tree-lined roads." It's a beautiful place.

Miss Centenário Brasil-Japão

Parabéns! Congratulations to Senhorita Karina Eiko Nakahara, pictured above — Bancária de Mogi das Cruzes é eleita Miss Centenário Brasil-Japão. She says "tradições japonesas" are part of her daily life. The concourse took place in Ibirapuera, in São Paulo, the heart of Brazil's one million-strong Japanese community. I visited there in 1995 and had some Chinese food, always a safe bet when travelling in a foreign country.

The Peakniks Were Right!

This AP Story is what Peak Oil enthusiasts have been saying would happen for years — High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules. Our post-industrial future will look a lot like our pre-industrial past. The last 150 years have been an anomaly in human history, an anomaly fueled by cheap energy.

A Korean Western Set in 1930s Manchuria

The above trailer is for The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (2008), to be released this summer. A lover of the genre, I look forward to seeing it.

[link via The Marmot's Hole and Korea Pop Wars]

The Smoke of Satan in the Ivory Tower

Abu Hatem أبو حاتم lists "[e]verything you will learn in the process of leftist and rightist indoctrination in a university" — The Vacuous Essence of Satanic Indoctrination.

The Rectification of Political Taxonomy

"When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty," Confucius is paraphrased to have had said. Thus, the Rectification of Names was always a fundamental Confucian project. Said the Sage, "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success." (The Analects of Confucius - Lun Yu XIII. 3.)

There are numerous terms in modern political discourse which have lost their meaning, endangering people with the loss of liberty or at least the inability to carry affairs on to success. Among the many terms in need of rectification, two stand out: "liberal" and "conservative." Somehow, social engineering and legislating behavior while raising taxes has come to be thought of as "liberal," whereas foreign wars of aggression waged through amassing debt is "conservative."

These terms regain some meaning by attaching the prefix "left-" to the former and "neo-" to the latter, and the one thing they agree on is that strong centralized power is needed to acheive their objectives. However, a complete rectification of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" is only possible by understanding them in terms of two political philosophies beginning with the prefix "paleo-."

Imagine an America in which Paleolibertarianism and Paleoconservatism were the two mainstream political philosophies in popular currency! Imagine an America in which what we now fancy to be "liberalism" and "conservatism" were relegated to the margins and recognized by most Americans as the dangerous ideologies that they are. Imagine an America in which Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan were representative of the country's two main political factions.

It would be an America in which people would be in no danger of losing their liberty, in which affairs could be carried on to success. It would be an America in which the designation United States would be rectified and recognized as a plural noun followed by the plural verb are not a singular one followed by is.

The Whorification of American Girlhood

Katharine Mieszkowski questions the wisdom of "sexually suggestive pint-size products from pole-dancing kits sold in the toy section to 'Hooters Girl (in training)' T-shirts for toddlers to padded bras for 6-year-olds" — Little girls gone wild. The corporations can and should be held accountable, but so should parents and rap "culture."

"Lessons on Peacemaking from the Iroquois Confederacy"

The late John Mohawk, of my alma mater, on the Haudenosaunee Great Law — The Warriors Who Turned to Peace.

A Corporation Even Ralph Nader Could Like

The corporate gadfly pays a visit to a company whose motto is "Do No Evil" — A Trip Inside Google.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Liliana Segura reports on the continuation of a noble tradition — Iraq Vets Testify to War Atrocities, Vow to Fight and Resist Bush Policy. The article begins:

"I was ordered multiple times by commissioned officers and noncommissioned officers to shoot unarmed civilians if their presence made me feel uncomfortable," Sgt. Jason Lemieux told a panel of lawmakers last Thursday in a packed public hearing on Capitol Hill. "These orders were given with the understanding that my immediate chain of command would protect our subordinates from legal repercussions."

It concludes with this statement from Sgt. Matthis, an an Army journalist who "heard many stomach-churning testimonies of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq" but "failed to report these crimes" and now refuses to redeploy:

This occupation is unconstitutional and illegal, and I hereby lawfully refuse to participate, as I will surely be a party to war crimes. Furthermore, deployment in support of illegal war violates all of my core values as a human being, but in keeping with those values, I choose to remain in the United States to defend myself from charges brought by the Army if they so wish to pursue them. I refuse to participate in the occupation of Iraq.

Nepals Maoist's Get Religion

The communist parody of the Sacrament of Penance is nothing new, but praying to Buddha and pledging "commitment to the Buddha’s message of peace" are — Maoists confess their crimes on Buddha’s birthday.

A Mother Mourns; a Mother Rejoices

E-quaintance Sunny Lee has penned two first-hand accounts of the destruction of Chengdu, the first from which the above image comes — The smoke means that someone is forever lost and Amid destruction, a new life.

Time for a Tactical Retreat on Marriage?

That thought comes to mind reading the ideas of the two Christian gentlemen below:

Rod Dreher says the decision was a "fait accompli because it is the natural consequence of deep historical forces that have moved through Western civilization for hundreds of years" and says our "quarrel is more with the men of the Enlightenment than with the justices of the California Supreme Court" — The heart of the marriage matter.

"The problem with today’s so-called 'conservatives' is that the rhetoric of democracy no longer serves the cause of faith, family, and traditional values," says Jeff Culbreath, noting that "'[t]he people' have already redefined marriage as a voidable, transitory business contract, for the subjective purposes of sexual pleasure and personal fulfillment, having no intrinsic connection to the begetting and education of children, and without any essential relationship to the health of our civilization and social order" — Democracy and Marriage.

Perhaps it's time to get the State out of the marriage business. Perhaps it's time to secede and form our own communities.

Los Angeles Locuta Est...

There's more to His Eminence than meets the eye — Cardinal Mahony bars Australian bishop with “doctrinal difficulties” from archdiocese. Wrote the oft-maligned Prince of the Church, "Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles."

War Pigs "Lovingly Covered" by Cake

[link via the LewRockwell.com Blog]

Anti-war, Anti-empire, Pro-military

Alan Bock has "hope that the abiding institutions and attitudes in the United States just might be able to weather the sustained and systematic assault on our liberties and our better traditions that has characterized the Bush administration since 9/11" — Optimistic About the Military.

Mr. Bock is right to conclude that "this country is fortunate to have a military with deeply rooted traditions and an abiding sense of honor" and hope for it to "outlast the ignorant and arrogant civilians and theorists who were so instrumental in starting this unfortunate war in which so many honorable people have been killed and maimed."

Urging the "Fox" to speak up on Iran after his principled resignation, Ray McGovern praises him "for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic" but reminds him that the "oath has no expiration date" — Dear Admiral Fallon.

Reminds Rep. Ron Paul, "Our foreign policy of interventionism is not only offensive to others, inviting further terrorist attacks, but it is ruining our economy as we tax, borrow and print the money to pay the bills of our empire" — The Economy: Another Casualty of War.

Cell Phones and the Unborn

PewSitter.com links to this story of a UCLA researcher's volte-face over the issue — Mobile Phone Use While Pregnant May 'Seriously Damage Baby,' Study Says.

Mad Cows or Mass Madness?

From The Times, the best headline ever of the current brouhaha — South Korean internet geeks trigger panic over US 'tainted beef' imports. Only the Brits could come up with copy like this:

Tens of thousands of young internet-obsessed South Koreans, whipped into a frenzy by alarmist television programmes, a complex scientific paper on genetics and a hyperactive online rumour-mill, have held candlelit vigils protesting against imports of American beef.

Believing that the meat carries a high risk of BSE and that Koreans are genetically predisposed to contracting the linked Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the online masses have taken to the streets, cursing America and demanding that their Government should act to avert catastrophe.

These three stories, one would hope, should put rest to this story.

First, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) has said that it "sees that muscles, the meat itself, are safe whether the cows are under or over 30 months old" — World Body Speaks on U.S. Beef Row for 1st Time.

Second, "GI Korea" links to a report stating there "is no 100-percent assurance that Korean beef, or hanwoo, is completely safe for consumption" and that "Korea has not registered to be classified by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on the safety of its cattle against mad cow disease, so we don’t know just how safe our beef really is" — Korean Beef Less Safe then American Beef.

Finally, if all else fails, the classic tactic of diversion always works; the trump card of nationalism, even if raised over an "alleged plan," never fails to rally the masses — Seoul Slams Tokyo Over Dokdo.

Post-Peak Conservatism

"A crucial role in shaping the future will be played by cultural conservers – individuals who choose to take on the task of learning and preserving some part of the cultural legacy of the past, and passing it on to the future," says Archdruid John Michael Greer — The same new ideas.

Post-Bush Hegemonism

It will look a lot like Clintonian hegemonism, says Mark Engler — How to rule the world after Bush:

The "free trade" elite in the United States, upset by the George W Bush administration's neo-conservative go-it-alone nationalism that disregarded multilateral means of securing influence, wants a "guerrilla assault" to return to the softer empire of corporate globalization. These corporate globalists are now bidding to control the direction of the US's economic policy, and they see the Democrats as their best chance.

Of course, the "free trade elite" is not really interested in free trade, but I agree with the author's assessment: "There is little question that the majority of people on the planet - those who suffered under both the corporate globalization of the Clinton years and the imperial globalization of Bush - deserve something better."

Ehsan Ahrari agrees that "for America, that inevitable moment of decline has not yet arrived" — The mythical post-American era.

Materialist Philosophy Masquerading as Science

Another article attempting to explain human nature — Human Suffering: Why We Care (or Don't). This is the realm of philosophy, not science. Materialists are entitled to their speculations about human nature, but dressing them up in the language of the physical sciences is scientism, not science. I'll take Mencius over this nonsense any day of the week.

The Ron Paul Smear Campaign Heats Up Again

LA Times's blogger Andrew Malcolm's pathetic attempt a few days ago to show good doctor's "mean, vicious, cruel and uncaring side" — Ron Paul is no compassionate conservative when it comes to Myanmar.

This was not, as the author disingenuously maintains, "a vote merely offering 'condolences and sympathy' to the people of Myanmar." It was, rather, a veiled threat which "criticized Burma's military government for restricting broad international humanitarian support for cyclone victims" — US Lawmakers Urge Burma Military to End Aid Restrictions. Dr. No's sole vote of "no" was a principled stance against interventionist foreign policy. One can understand the Burmese junta's reluctance to let foreign aid workers enter their country keeping in mind these recent calls for war, linked to previously on this blog — The case for invading Myanmar and Is It Time to Invade Burma?

Here's a more recent and even more pathetic attempt by the same author to smear Dr. Paul— Ron Paul, the little guy's champion, turns out to be a millionaire. There may have been a time when assets of "between $2.29 million and $5.3 million" made one an oligarch, but that time is long since passed, largely due to monetary policies strongly opposed by Dr. Paul. And surely the fact that Dr. Paul applied the same frugality in his personal finances that he advocates for the American ecomomy accounts for relative wealth. (Good for him; no politics of envy here.)

In a particularly annoying passage, Mr. Malcolm betrays the reason for the smear bund's resurgence:

Though a presidential political loser, Paul also has recently published his latest book, "The Revolution: A Manifesto," both a call to arms and a long-term source of income for Paul's struggle to take control of the Republican Party.

The enemy are the fake conservatives and moderates who got the nation into the Iraq war, who support big government and big spending and may well be planning a secret political union with Canada and Mexico using an unbuilt highway across Texas. Don't ask; it's just gospel.

Thanks to Paul's loyal thousands of followers, his new little book zoomed to the top of the Amazon.com bestseller list even before publication.

Now, his new book is also bouncing around among the top 10 on the bestseller list of the New York Times, which is not a libertarian publication.

Bill Kauffman addresses the dismissiveness of the first paragraph in his review of Dr. Paul's book — You Say You Want a Revolution?: "The Revolution is what the blurbists used to call a runaway bestseller. It is simply impossible to imagine another also-ran achieving such success in his campaign’s afterglow. (The Pensees of Joe Biden?)"

As for the second paragraph, that neoconservatives are "fake conservatives" is self-evident; neocon Jonah Goldeberg quotes neocon Robert Kagan as saying, "The first thing that could be said about this neoconservative worldview is that there is nothing very conservative about it" — How neo are the neocons? That those who "got the nation into the Iraq war, who support big government and big spending" are an "enemy" is equally self-evident. As for the "secret political union with Canada and Mexico using an unbuilt highway across Texas," read up on Interstate 69 and the North American Union and draw your own conclusions. "Don't ask; it's just gospel." No, ask.

With Dr. Paul's book "at the top of the Amazon.com bestseller list even before publication" and "among the top 10 on the bestseller list of the New York Times," is it any wonder for this renewed attack. After all, for Dr. Paul, it was always about the ideas, not the man, and the ideas of a sane foreign and fiscal policy have the establishment scared.

Victor Jara's Case Closed

So ruled a judge recently on the folksinger's murder, committed shortly after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état:


Here are two of my favorite songs of his:




Let me quote myself from an almost four-year-old post — Victor Jara:

Victor Jara was a Chilean communist folk-singer tortured and murdered shotly after the September 11, 1973 coup d'état (Chile's 911) that brought General Agosto Pinochet to power. It is said that the soldiers crushed and burned his hands, gave him a guitar and demanded he play before machine-gunning him to death.

I laid a flower on his niche-grave when I was an exchange student in Santiago. In one of my classes there, I wrote an essay about him, which brought tears to my professor's eyes; she had been a friend of Victor Jara.

His music, regardless of its politics, is absolutely beautiful. It helped me to learn Spanish. Here is a site that offers many of his songs for free, as they are no longer available on commercial releases: Victor Jara rarities in MP3. Start with Te recuerdo Amanda, a song of working-class love.

Bolivian Baroque

LewRockwell.com, rightly calling the music "man's greatest," links to this wonderful article about how "a biannual baroque festival and the legacy of missionaries" inspires "young people [to] join choirs and take up the violin and Vivaldi in parishes across the country's eastern lowlands" — Music transforms kids and towns in remote area of Bolivia. Be sure to click on the video. Says director Adelina Anori Cunanguira, "Our ancestors played with the Jesuits. It is in our blood."

Some music from the International Festival of Renaissance and American Baroque Music, a.k.a. the Chiquitos Missions Festival:


I've blogged about the region before — "The Last Paradise" and The Former Bolivian Republic of Santa Cruz.

Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris

Our favorite chronicler of Korean church architecture visits France — 고딕성당건축-프랑스파리의노트르담성당(박효순).

South Korean Massacres

Today, on the anniversary of The Kwangju Massacre of May 1980, an even worse massacre thirty years earlier is in the news — Thousands killed in 1950 by US's Korean ally.

Is the US to blame? Of course not, but the Unites States gets blood on its hands when its imperial underlings perform evil, all the more reason for America to avoid the "foreign entanglements" and "entangling alliances" the Founders warned her about.

Peacenik Pope

Ahead of the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions — Pope Urges Ban on Cluster Bombs.

Rightwing Peakniks

In a post entitled Peak Oil and the Right about "the ugly sight of seeing the leader of the free world debasing himself by begging our Saudi Masters to turn up the pumps," Clark Stooksbury links to this "excellent post from Patrick Deneen" — Peak Oil - Liberals vs. "Conservatives".

Sichuan Earthquake News

Starting today — China holding 3 days of mourning for quake victims.

The quake also seems to have damaged State censorship — China allows bloggers, others to spread quake news.

This is what leaders are for — Nation looks to Grandpa Wen for comfort.

The dark side rears its ugly head — "Black-hearted" conmen bid for China quake charity.

"Unless the Grain of Wheat Shall Die" and "Against the Grain"

The titles of two publications reproted on here — Terminator seeds are "grossly immoral" say theologians.

Jimmy Mizen's Funeral

The story of the London boy killed for refusing to fight was linked to here a few days ago; here's the story of his funeral — Mother calls for forgiveness at service for murdered son. His father alo had this important message:

Jimmy's father Barry, warned against demands for new laws as a reaction to his son's killing. He said: "It does not have to be like this. Perhaps we all need to look to ourselves and look to the values we would like and our responses to situations in our life. Sometimes we might be drawn into certain ways of our living. It is our choice but change has got to come from all of us."

Jimmy is survived by his parents and eight siblings.