"These buoys and bottles are new... and suspicious"

NBC News on Friday had an interesting story related to the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster that occurred over a year ago.

It seems that significant pieces of debris that were washed out to sea during the tsunami have made their way across the Pacific Ocean. The largest and most notable — and the most hazardous — has been the "ghost ship" that had been drifting toward the North American coastline. The US Coast Guard decided to torpedo it and let it sink in waters 6000 feet (1800 meters) deep.

The ghost ship is fascinating enough (and it's too bad they couldn't sink it in a more favorable location so that it could become an artificial reef and perhaps a diving site), but what got me interested enough to post this was their discussion of the everyday items from Japan that they've noticed coming ashore.

One biologist in Sitka who routinely helps with cleaning up the beaches around Sitka, in the Alaska Panhandle, says they've noticed more and more debris. Quoting NBC's Miguel Almaguer, "These buoys and bottles are new... and suspicious."

Not to make light of their obvious plight, but here's an example of the suspicious stuff from Japan:

Yup. That's a Korean bottle of Minute Maid Fresh juice (looks to be apple). To be fair, they said that Japanese debris washes up on their shore all the time (something about the geography makes it prone to collecting floating garbage) and they would need to verify if this is from last year's tsunami. Hint to NBC News: The Korean bottle probably isn't, but go ahead with the geiger counter anyway.

Sure, it's not entirely implausible that the Korean bottle came from northern Japan. A realistic scenario would be that someone from Japan visited Korea and brought this bottle back on the plane as a beverage or even a souvenir, but my guess is that it actually floated over from Korea.

I've done beach cleanup along northern Oahu long before the tsunami, and it's easy to see Japanese, Korean, and even Chinese goods washed upon the shore and partly buried in the sand. Lest you think it's only East Asians dumping things in the ocean, we see lots of stuff from the US (much of it local, but some of it from the Mainland).

And except for the local stuff, I'm not so sure that these are examples of people carelessly dumping things into the ocean. I remember The Lost Nomad used to put up atrocious pictures of garbage dumped along rivers or reservoirs where he'd fish.

I had assumed that 100% of that had been left by some careless person, like the people who toss their cigarette butts into subway vents, but after experiencing some minor flooding due to torrential rains that are frequent during Korea's changma (rainy season), I've concluded that a large portion, perhaps even the vast majority, comes from garbage and other debris that had been secured being blown away or washed away by heavy rain.

Of course, that doesn't make it any healthier to wildlife or the environment, but at least it restores some of my faith in humanity. That is, until I see a smoker toss a cigarette butt into a subway vent again.

...

Korea-Japan underwater tunnel?

I've written about it before, this idea of an undersea tunnel connecting South Korea's Pusan or Kŏjedo to Japan's Kyushu via Tsushima Island, several times in the past. It intrigues me.

Well, apparently it also intrigues the folks at the Chosun Ilbo (who usually only get intrigued by pictures of nude or scantily clad women).

They write that such a grand undertaking would take ten to fifteen years to construct and cost 110 to 120 trillion won. Trillion as in cho (조), a number you rarely ever get a chance to use (lop off three of the zeroes to see how much it would be in dollars). We could see this happening around the year 2020 (but don't expect too many English teachers to be helping out).

(HT to The Marmot and his Twitter feed)

...

Fall back!

Britney does her part to get the word out.

Still busy. And unlike most of the rest of the United States, we in the Aloha State did not get an extra hour to sleep in, do our work, or otherwise procrastinate by watching the Hulu.

When I was living in Seoul nearly full time, daylight saving(s) time, mostly meant one thing: Every fall my mother would go from calling me at three o'clock in the morning to calling me at four o'clock in the morning, and every spring she would switch back to three o'clock.

Hillary Clinton once wondered how then-Senator Barack Obama would handle the 3 a.m. phone call. Kushibo handled it by groggily telling his mum to please learn the difference between a.m. and p.m. The "seventeen hours' difference" thing threw her off; I told her to just guess what time it was seven/eight hours ago and then add a day, and that's where I am.

Anyway, with the rest of the nation switching back to standard time, it will make it a little easier to call the East Coast of the US: They're now five hours ahead instead of six, and that means there's a larger window of time to do business with them after I get up in the morning.

It is sort of weird that out here in Hawaii, we're closer in time to Korea and Japan (essentially five hours' difference) than New York City, Washington DC, and the rest of the I-95 corridor for over half the year.

Anyway, fall back, as of 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, November 6 (the first Sunday in November). You won't need to spring forward (and give that hour back) until 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, March 11, 2012 (the second Sunday in March).

By the way, as I've reported before (here, here, and here), there has been some consideration given to Korea going on DST for half the year, but it is very unlikely to happen unless Japan agrees to do so as well. Unless the three parts of the United States closest to Korea and Japan and where Koreans and Japanese are likely to travel — Guam, Saipan, and Hawaii — also go on daylight saving time, it seems less likely it will happen.

Hawaii, incidentally, has given mulling over going on Daylight Losing Time.

above: Adjusting for Daylight Saving Time in England.
(recycled not-all-that-funny-the-first-time gag from here)

...

Are Korea's domestic airliners vulnerable to "short-haul fatigue"?

I don't know how well publicized the news has been about the Southwest Airlines jet that ended up with a hole in it due to metal fatigue, but it has a lot of people in the US freaked out.

We've been hearing a lot about speculation that the nature of short-haul flights — far more frequent "cycles" of take-off and landing with the concomitant pressurizing and depressurizing than with long-haul flights having the same "mileage" — may have heavily contributed to the "rupture" and that makes people worried:

Southwest Airlines' older aircraft plus its famously efficient short-haul operations — requiring planes to fly an average of six times a day — probably contributed to the fuselage rupture that forced a jetliner carrying 118 passengers to make an emergency landing in Arizona last week.

Aviation experts said the aluminum skin of the 15-year-old Boeing 737-300 could have become fatigued from the stress of daily landings and takeoffs as well as frequent changes in cabin pressure.

Six flights a day? Does that not sound like a Seoul-to-Cheju milk runner? The first thing that occurred to me was that that situation — frequent short-haul flights covering a distance of hundreds, not thousands, of kilometers — perfectly characterized the domestic operations of South Korea's local carriers, Asiana, Korean Air, and a handful of discount start-ups. Ditto with domestic carriers in next-door Japan (as well as operators between most Korean and Japanese destinations).

Sure enough, there are others who thought the exact same thing:

South Korea's government also ordered Asiana Airlines and its affiliated budget carrier, Air Busan, to conduct safety inspections of their Boeing 737 fleets, reports the Korea Times.

Neither operates Boeing 737-300s. But Asiana has two Boeing 737-400 planes, and Air Busan has three Boeing 737-400s and 737-500s.

"Our two 737-400 aircraft are only 14 years-old. Given the fact that commercial airplanes normally retire after 30 years in operation, our planes are fairly new. We have been making all-out efforts to keep our planes in good shape," an Asiana Airlines spokesman told the newspaper.

That's good to know, but it rattles the public that this kind of thing is being discovered and diligently addressed only after a serious incident occurred. If I'd been on a short-haul flight from, say, Seoul to Fukuoka and I suddenly got an instant skylight above my seat, I might be booking passage on seagoing vessels for the rest of my natural days.

The real reason airlines want you to turn off your electronics
before flight is that you might snap embarrassing pictures
of their planes falling apart before your very eyes.

Is Oh Eunsun a victim of Dr Hwang and Korea's reverse halo effect?

It's nearly half a decade in the past, but I guess the Hwang Factor™ is still around: major accomplishments by Koreans are sometimes still regarded with a just-below-the-surface suspicion that there may be shortcuts or subterfuge involved.

This apparently is tainting what should be a celebrated accomplishment by Oh Eunsun, the South Korean who became the first woman to scale all fourteen of the world's peaks over 8000 meters.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In late April, the 44-year-old former government worker became the first woman to scale the planet's 14 highest peaks — all of them over 26,000 feet and located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges — narrowly beating three European women for the record.

Though hailed as a hero in South Korea, Oh says she has learned a bitter lesson about her endurance sport: Along with capricious storms and thin air, jealousy and resentment often await at the highest Himalayan altitudes.

Oh's record has provoked an avalanche of criticism. Her use of oxygen tanks and her reliance on Sherpa guides break unwritten rules of the sport, some say. Others dispute that Oh even reached the peak of Kanchenjunga on the border between India and Nepal, the world's third-highest summit, suggesting her victory photograph was taken somewhere below the top.

Oh, they say, is a cheater.

This is not a new story (I myself mentioned it several times), but the LAT's John Glionna addressed it a few days ago (with little play in the K-blogs), and he also drew that connection with Hwang Woosuk:

The controversy, many say, raises questions about fair play on both sides. Are Europeans so protective of their traditional success in alpine sports that they would attack an unlikely champion from Asia? Or is Oh the product of a hyper-competitive South Korean culture marked by such scandals as cheating on college entrance exams and the 2006 case of scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who faked groundbreaking stem cell research?

"It's heartbreaking," Oh says of criticism from some female climbers whose exploits inspired her. "But I'm also human. How could I not be angry?"

It sucks to be tagged in a negative way because of your compatriots. Sadly, it's something many of Ms Oh's fellow Koreans routinely do with people of other nationalities.

But at the same time, do these handful of prominent cases warrant such a broad-stroke impression? Cheating on college entrance exams is not unique to Korea, nor is academic dishonesty. Korea sometimes seems to be coated with whatever the opposite of Teflon would be. I wonder, for example, how much worse the fallout would be for Korea Inc in general if Toyota were a Korean company. One could easily argue that the rest of Japan Inc is insulated from Toyota's woes in a way Korean companies wouldn't be were the same problem to befall Hyundai or Kia.

UPDATE (June 2, 2010):
Inspired by a comment at this post at ROK Drop, I'm adding a little something in response to allegations that Ms Oh broke "unwritten rules" against using a sherpa or an oxygen tank, an elaboration of one of my own comments.

Yes, those apparently were "unwritten rules of the sport." And unwritten rules have a funny way of being brought to the light of day when it's most convenient, like for an opponent trying to discredit your victory. I note that this protest comes after the accusations that she was just shy of one of the summits apparently didn't stick.

The sherpa guide "unwritten rule" rings hollow to me, given that the first two people credited with reaching the top of Mt Everest were Sir Edmund Hillary and his sherpa guide Tenzin Norgay [see here]. That same link notes that "every climber carries an oxygen tank because of the lack of oxygen."

Unless the sherpa carried her and her oxygen tank up the frickin' mountain, gimme a break. Ultimately, as the LAT article points out, some Europeans apparently aren't ready for Asian alpinists to make a mark in "their" sport.

Social media means social adjustment?

From the Los Angeles Times:

Far from hampering adolescents' social skills or putting them in harm's way, as many parents have feared, electronics appear to be the path by which children today develop emotional bonds, their own identities, and an ability to communicate and work with others.

In fact, children most likely to spend lots of time on social media sites are not the least well-adjusted but the healthiest psychologically, suggests an early, but accumulating, body of research.

In one new study, 13- and 14-year-olds were found to interact on social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace simply in ways that were consistent with their offline relationships and patterns of behavior. And of the 86% of children who used social media sites (a number that reflects the national average), participants who were better adjusted in their early teens were more likely to use social media in their early 20s, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity or their parents' income.

Adolescents are largely using social networking sites to keep in touch with friends they already know, not to converse with strangers, said the author of that research, University of Virginia psychologist Amori Yee Mikami.

Makes me wonder how this would apply to Korea. I admit I don't spend enough time around typical teenagers to know about their habits, but some of the students on the subway do seem lost in their own little world, oblivious to what's going on around them, but that just might mean they're even more connected to others. Perhaps it's a healthy form of escapism?

Take me out to the ball game...

In late July I went to a baseball game at the Olympic Stadium complex (종합운동장) in Chamshil (Jamsil) with four friends that included three French people who were curious about America's (and lately East Asia's) pastime. While I explained all the plays and odd rules, we watched Samsung whoop LG's ass.

North American baseball fandom is centered around a geographic following, whereas Korean baseball (following its Japanese counterpart) is a mixture of corporate and regional affiliation. For example, the Minnesota Twins are the Minnesota team, cheered on by people all across Minnesota (and perhaps the nearby Dakotas, Iowa, and Manitoba), whereas the LG Twins are, well, more associated with LG than their Seoul location. For teams from the provinces, as I understand it, the regional association can be a bit stronger.

So for me, cheering on the Angels is a no-brainer, since I'm from Los Angeles of Anaheim Orange County, but with LG-versus-Samsung, I could go either way. Every single cell phone I've ever owned in South Korea (plus my pre-iPhone cell phone in Hawaii) has been an LG. My service provider is LG, too. So's my refrigerator. But I own a lot of Samsung products, too, including an air conditioner and a couple televisions. I once drove a Samsung rental car.

So my loyalties lay instead with whomever is going to put on a better show. Samsung played quite well, and I couldn't help but cheer their expert plays, but the problem was we were sitting in the LG section, and LG sucked that night. Not the best situation, and "B" kept hitting me in the shoulder, her way of reminding me that there were drunk LG fans all around us.

[above: fans in the Samsung section.]

So this (above) is where we should have been sitting, with the well-behaved fans of Samsung and their blue thundersticks, on the other side of the stadium. Instead we were amongst a bunch of red thundersticks, which were occasionally orchestrated by these lovely cheerleaders. Yes, for those of you who have never been to a Korean baseball game, there are cheerleaders, and they do try to get the crowd going. "B" kept asking me to get pictures of these cheerleaders (I still haven't figured out exactly why), so the three dozen or so I took isn't me being a lech.

[above: I do wish I'd been at the proper angle to get a clear picture of any one of these girls' chest with "Twins" written across it. Because that, in my childishly salacious mind, would be funny.]

Indeed, objectification of women is no small part of Korean baseball. You may have noticed in the uppermost picture that Samsung has a bat girl. I always thought this role was filled by a young boy who aspired someday to be in the big leagues, but I'm not really sure since in California all I can afford are the nosebleed seats, too far for even my telephoto lens to verify who is picking up the bat.

I guess there's nothing wrong with a bat boy being a young woman, though I fail to see the function of her showing off her midriff. And truth be told, I think I'd prefer a bat girl over a bat boy.

Besides the enthusiasm, the cheerleaders, and the exposed tummies, another thing that I love about Korean ball games (and Korean movie theaters, for that matter) is that they haven't yet adopted the American practice of price-gouging spectators (or moviegoers). Food and drink (including beer) can be found at down-to-earth prices, although the fast-food joints ran out of their combo specials pretty quick (yes, this bewildering KFC with the Korean food items on display really did have a full KFC menu).

We all had chicken sandwiches, snack cookies from the convenience store next door, and later a beer.

[above: 한식? Apparently "KFC" stands for "Korean Food! Come in!"]

The French and "B" all found the game quite interesting, even if "our team" lost. I was quick to point out the shared similarities between Korean ball games and American ball games, such as "the wave" and, lately, the kiss cam.

I was just about to put my camera away when the kiss cam popped up. The camera crew, via the giant TV screen, highlighted about four couples who were, under pressure from the crowd, expected to kiss. Hopefully they were people who were actual boyfriend-girlfriend or spouses (of each other), and not random strangers sitting next to each other.

The fourth couple was the mixed-race couple shown above and below, which is why I took the pictures. Now, the meme among many foreign residents, especially in the K-blogs, is that the male-dominated Korean social structure supposedly loathes such pairings. If this is true, the only explanation for the stadium cameramen focusing on such a couple would not be to get them to smooch, but to provide easy identification so that drunken spectators could hunt them down on the subway after the game. Right?

As it turns out, the girl was quite embarrassed to be kissing this guy in front of all those people (a typical reaction, by the way, even among those not engaging in forbidden love), and you can see that she moved away from him in such a way that it would be harder for him to fulfill his duties.

All in all, it was a fun evening. No post-game violence (though "B" says sometimes rival fans who have had too much to drink occasionally go at each other on the train ride home), parking cost only 3000 won (it's $15 or $20 at Dodger Stadium and $10 at Angel Stadium), and the French went away feeling that baseball is indeed a fun game to watch, but le football remains superior.

Say what you meme!

This is a work in progress. I will add and subtract things, and maybe amend some explanation. In some circles, it is referred to simply as "The Post."

I've been collecting memes from the various K-blogs. Some of these take the form of stereotypes or generalizations, and some of them have a strong element of truth to them, at least to some segment of the population. The problem is when they are uncritically accepted as being applicable to most or virtually all of the population.

It's entirely possible that I am guilty of the same selective gaze over which I bash many of the bloggers and commenters, but what is noteworthy is not just how the widely circulated memes are so overwhelmingly negative, but how even the positive ones come with qualification. In essence, Korea is the country that can do no right.

1. VANK represents all Koreans; their attitudes are typical of Koreans.
2. Koreans are intractably dishonest.
3. Korean work is inferior, particularly to the United States, other Western countries, and especially Japan.
4. Korea is full of racists. Extreme meme: Korean is the most racist country in East Asia, the world, the Universe (take your pick).
5. Korean men are perverts who sexually abuse women.
6. Korean men are assholes who physically abuse women.
7. Korean men are dicks who verbally abuse women.
8. Korean men are subpar, so Korean women want a foreign guy (read: White guy).
9. Korean men are boring.
   
10. If anything good comes out of Korea, it's the exception. If anything bad comes out of Korea, it's par for the course.
11. Koreans are ungrateful to the Allied Forces for liberating Korea in 1945, especially the United States.
12. Koreans are ungrateful to the UN Forces for saving Korea in 1950, especially the United States.
13. If something Korean looks good, it's derivative or copied from somewhere else, probably Japan or the US.
14. If something Korean looks bad, what do you expect, it's Korean.
15. If you are a "foreigner," Koreans will never accept you.
16. Being a foreigner is never to your benefit in Korea. A foreigner can never come out on top in a disagreement.
17. Korean is too racist and xenophobic to ever be a global power.
18. If you are a "foreigner" working in a Korean company, you are simply a token foreigner. You're probably just doing proofreading and teaching English to your boss every morning. Note: "Token foreigner" is often written as "token whitey," since many of the Whites in Korea see themselves as the default "foreigner" in Korea, or at least the default Westerner.
19. Koreans are ignorant fools for thinking that Whites represent Westerners.
20. Most "foreigners" who commit crimes in Korea are actually kyopo (ethnic Koreans from overseas), so real "foreigners" aren't so bad at all.
21. Koreans will never accept "foreigners" as Koreans.
22. Government action is often aimed at keeping foreigners down.
23. Koreans are like Nazis, but without the power — so far.
24. Koreans have small penises. Except for the women (who act like they have small penises).
25. Asian men in general have small penises.
26. Korean men are mostly impotent due to excessive smoking and drinking.
27. Korean men (i.e., ajŏshi, ajeossi) are perpetually drunk (corollary: Ajŏshis are alcoholics.)
28. Most Korean men cheat on their wives.
29. Korea hides its true HIV infection rates to avoid national embarrassment.
30. Korean prostitution thrives behind every telephone pole (and barber shop pole).
    
31. Korean police are incompetent.
    
32. Korean police are lazy.
33. Korean police do not care about solving crimes where a "foreigner" is the victim.
34. If a foreigner even appears to be responsible for a crime, Korean police will come down hard on that person.
35. The Korean media is obsessed with crimes committed by "foreigners," especially English teachers. (This meme in particular gets a lot of play, ironically, because English-language K-blogs highlight crime stories involving "foreigners," way beyond how much play they get in the Korean-language news media.)
    
36. Koreans think Korea is a perfect country.
37. Koreans never complain about Korea; they only complain about foreigners and foreign countries.
38. If a Korean is nice to you, they want something.
39. If a Korean is nice to you without wanting something, they're doing so only because they care about bolstering Korean national image.
40. Korea is a third-world country playing dress-up as a first-world country.
41. Koreans are rude. Extreme meme: Koreans are the rudest people in Asia, if not the world. And if there is life on other planets, Koreans certainly out-rude them, too.
42. Koreans aren't really as smart as standardized tests would make them out to be.
43. Koreans may have mad rote memorization skills, but they have zero critical thinking or creativity skills.
44. Hyundais are crappy cars. (corollary: Kias are crappy cars.)
45. Samsung is a pale imitation of Sony.
46. Hyundai's efforts to improve their brand image will fail because no one will forget Hyundai Excels circa 1986. Never ever, because we won't let them.
47. Koreans hate Blacks and hold racist viewpoints toward them. Necessary subconscious corollary: Whites have somehow magically become not racist toward Blacks.
48. Minorities in America, Canada, etc., are treated much better than "foreigners" in Korea. (Necessary subconscious corollary: White people in America know what it's like to be a minority member in America, and it's really not so bad.)
49. Korean-Americans have no business whining about racist treatment in America. If you don't like it, go home. Corollary: How can you bitch about what happens in America when such-and-such is happening to Americans in Korea?
50. South Koreans do not want reunification, even though they say they do.
51. South Koreans will do whatever they can to prevent reunification. (Necessary subconscious corollary: All other countries are working feverishly toward Korean reunification, but South Korea keeps derailing it.)
52. Koreans hate Japan (the government, the people, etc.).
53. Koreans are hypocrites because they love Japanese stuff.
54. Koreans are also hypocrites because they model their national development after Japan.
55. Only Koreans care about Tokto/Takeshima. Corollaries: Japanese don't care about Tokto/Takeshima; "Foreigners" are uninterested in Tokto/Takeshima (it's a boring and insufferable topic, so move on).
56. Korean girls are secretly whores. Corollary: Some of them not a secret at all, but everyday Koreans willfully deny it.
57. Koreans are bad drivers. Extreme meme: Koreans are the worst drivers in the world.
58. Koreans are filthy people who litter everywhere. Extreme meme: Koreans are the dirtiest group of people in the world, and Korea is practically covered in litter.
59. Young Koreans don't care about the elderly.
60. Many Koreans are closet pedophiles who are easily masked because Koreans don't really care if kids are being sexually abused. (Corollary: Koreans care about children being sexually abused only when a "foreigner" — especially an English teacher — is the suspect.)
61. Korean ajŏshi (아저씨, older men) are self-centered bumpkins who ruin everything. (Corollary frequently uttered by a famous person I know who makes his money masking his disdain for Koreans: "Koreans are just farmers in suits.")
62. At heart, Koreans are corrupt people who will do whatever they can to get what they want, be that bribes, lies, arm-twisting, plying with women, or flattery.
63. No matter how hard they learn, Koreans are sh¡tty English speakers.
64. Koreans send their kids to English classes as a feel-good placebo. Corollary: Koreans send their kids to English classes as a parenting substitute.
65. Korean Christians are hypocritical pharisees.
66. If a foreigner is in an argument with a Korean, the Korean is probably wrong.
67. If Koreans see another Korean arguing or fighting with a "foreigner," they will come to the Korean's aid, regardless of whether he/she is in the right.
68. Koreans are illogical and emotional.
69. The Korean government is inept.
70. Local Korean governments are even more inept.
71. Rampant sexual assault is common in Korea and rarely gets reported.
72. The so-called Korean Wave is a media myth engineered by the Korean press and the Korean government. (Corollary: Koreans are the only ones who believe it exists.)
73. Korean music groups have no real talent.
74. Successful male Korean music groups and solo artists are closeted homosexuals.
75. Korean men in general are effeminate; their metrosexual tendencies mask their closeted (or latent) homosexuality; in fact, most may be gay. (Corollary: Korean men's unique effeminate nature may be hormonally induced.)
76. Female Korean celebrities had to sleep their way to where they are. Related corollary: If they are no longer popular, it's because they refused to sleep with someone.
77. All pretty girls in Korea have had plastic surgery, probably lots of it. Their own grandmothers can't recognize them, except by smell.
78. In general, Koreans and Korea just don't have a clue.
79. Above all else, Koreans see foreigners as dirty.
80. Koreans are just sixty years out of mud huts.
81. When bad things happen to me, it's because I'm a foreigner.
82. Koreans go on and on about how Korea has four seasons, including that only Korea has four seasons and this makes Korea unique and/or superior. 
83. Korean courts will let you off for anything if you claim you were drunk at the time. (Corollary: The "I was drunk" defense doesn't work for foreigners.)
84. Hypocrisy is a cultural trait of Koreans. 
85. All Korean universities, all Korean academics, and all Korean degrees are fraudulent (evidence: people believe it in their bones).
86. still working on these (last updated November 4, 2012) ...

In a sense, I've condensed the K-blogosphere to its purest form. Just as a daily dose of resveratrol can replace the consumption of a hundred or so glasses of wine, randomly going through this list each day, when preceded by a glance at the day's headlines, can be the equivalent of a stroll through a few dozen blogs (or, rather, their comments section).

If you find yourself throwing these out one by one in a confrontation with a KoKo, take a step back. If you find yourself thinking just like this most of the day, also take a step back.