Are White people...

I think I was trying to find out if White people were more likely to have heart disease then Asians, but it seems clear from other people's Google searches that White people need to step up their marketing game.

Maybe this is just a Honolulu thing.

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Taking "casual Fridays" a bit too far

Today is, apparently, "No Panties Friday," or some such. Which is different from "No Pants Wednesday" (which turned out to be my most popular post ever).

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking: "Oh, geez, not another Hallmark Holiday!"

Anyway, the real reason I thought to post this is that, had this gone truly global as its organizers had hoped, there would have been a lot of participation by confused men in Korea and Japan.

Now I'd better get to work on putting something together so this is no longer the post on top. This is a serious news blog. That my mother reads. No, really.

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The Real Kushibo Website

Just as soon as the semester ends, I'm going to head to Florida, goad some coons punks into attacking me, shoot them dead, and then publicly put out my PayPal account so that total strangers who are delighted I killed an urban youth can send me money, ostensibly for my legal defense fund.

It seems to be working for this guy. (The poor fella is upset over a similar "life-altering event" in which he killed a teenager; it was a real life-altering event for the dead kid and his family as well.)

Heck, why wait? I've already got the PayPal account, and I've got an oppressive amount of parking tickets.

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Outsourcing American elections to sunny Spain?

I'm going to sound like a paranoid hack, but ever since 2004, when electronic voting systems were discovered to be giving George W. Bush thousands more votes for president than there were actual residents of the jurisdiction in some parts of too-close-to-call Ohio, I've been very leery of "voting technology" that does not leave a paper trail or which can be hacked.

Actually, I had been worried about this even longer, but my fears became reality in the 2004 election. Though Ohio in 2004 was less infamous than Florida in 2000 (largely because Democratic candidate John Kerry conceded on election night instead of contesting the preliminary results like Al Gore had done in 2000), the election-deciding vote in the Buckeye State was a mess (see also here).

One notable incident among many was the aforementioned granting of 4,258 votes to Bush in a precinct with only 800 registered voters casting 638 ballots (Kerry received 260 votes). This "glitchy memory card" incident occurred in the town of Gahanna, a name that ought to be as familiar as "butterfly ballot."

Amazingly, though, this issue has all but disappeared from the public space, but perhaps we should be paying attention again. It seems that more and more jurisdictions have been using SOE software to run their elections. Last month, SOE was acquired by a company SCYTL, and that puts a substantial amount of control over our electoral process in the hands of a foreign company (SCYTL is based in Spain). This is not meant as a secret, as it's portrayed prominently on their website:

Scytl has acquired 100% of SOE Software. Scytl is a technology company specializing in the development of secure electronic voting and election modernization solutions. Based in Barcelona and with offices in Baltimore, Toronto, New Delhi, Athens, Kiev and Singapore, Scytl’s solutions have been used in public elections by governments from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia. Scytl is a portfolio company of leading international VC funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker. More information is available at www.scytl.com.

While it's a positive that they are transparent about who and where they are, that doesn't make the prospect that American elections can be controlled or even manipulated by or in foreign offices any less ominous.

And just why is this kind of thing happening? There are certain aspects of our lives where quality is of the utmost concern, not frugality. Elections are supposed to be accurate, not economical. If this is a move to make the elections process cheaper, forget it. If it's an effort make the elections process more efficient, then we have to ask what kind of efficiency we're looking for. If it's about counting votes fast, forget it.

If it's about counting votes quickly but in a way in which they can and will be independently verified through a hand count, then that's something we can work with.

What it comes down to, though, is that I don't even trust Republicans (e.g., Ken Blackwell) to manage our elections, much less some cabal in Spain over whom the United State has no jurisdiction.

And no, I am not a kook and I don't wear a tinfoil hat, though I occasionally rock a cotton fedora. Interestingly, I first heard about this at a conservative website (the kind where I occasionally leave comments informing them where their facts are completely out of whack and/or mocking them). It's nice to see they are taking up the issue (though it's largely because they think this is how Obama will steal the 2012 election — evidenced by him confidently telling the Russian leader what he'll do after he's re-elected), but I wonder why this never bothered them in 2004 when their candidate rode these machines into the White House.

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A few thoughts on Trayvon Martin

I've been reading a lot of conservative blogs lately, especially ones expressing outrage over the outrage over Trayvon Martin's murder attempted murder foiled by self-defense manslaughter. And maybe I'm being too squishy or something, but the conservatives have me doing a 180° on how I felt about the case.

So let's get a few things straight here. We've been looking at things all wrong: Zimmerman is not only not a murderer; he's a hero for having taken out a thug who was capable of God only knows what. Just look at the facts.

First, Trayvon was 6'3", and everyone knows that once you're over six foot, bullets cannot hurt you; he was invincible and Zimmerman knew it.

Second, Zimmerman had everyone reason to fear for his life, because at any minute the invincible Trayvon Martin might pluck the gun right out of his hand and shoot him. If I were an armed George Zimmerman, I'd be afraid, too.

Third, we've all seen those movies where the wispy 140-pound guy can totally unexpectedly knock down someone 80% heavier than themselves; Trayvon no doubt had some mad skills and Zimmerman was reasonably fearful.

Fourth, Zimmerman knew all about Trayvon's suspension from school, which demonstrates he was a criminal and, therefore, deserved to die. We should emphasize this as much as possible: Trayvon Martin was a thug who took pictures of himself doing gang signals. Sure, White kids also do gang signals on their Facebook profile pics, but that's all for fun. Everyone knows that when Black kids do it, they are serious. In Trayvon's case, half serious.

He was a punk who did things that scare reasonable White people, and we should emphasize that as much as possible. Where there's nothing to go on, make stuff up, because we're probably right anyway.

Fifth, Blacks have known for years how things are, so why should they be all up in arms that Zimmerman suspected Tray was up to no good and tried to ask him where he was going, even though he had no authority to do so. That's just how it works and Trayvon was itching for a fight by not cooperating with it. His blood is on his own hands for getting too uppity.

Finally, Zimmerman did not say "fuckin' coons" when he was talking with the 911 operator. He didn't even say "fuckin' goons," which is a term of endearment. He actually said "macaroons." He was hungry and neighborhood patrol had given him the munchies.

But all Trayvon had was Skittles. Niggardly bastard.

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random mention of Korea in American entertainment media of the day

Not so much of a mention of Korea as an inclusion of Korean text. Hardly a rarity these days, but the thing is that the "monster" (that's what 괴물/koémul means) depicted in this Family Guy episode is supposed to be a Japanese competitive eating champion.

(The badge on his robe also says 꼬치/goch'i, the Korean word for shish kebab.)

Or am I missing some really subtle political statement about the lingering resentment (han, if you will) held by Koreans toward Japanese over numerous brutal transgressions in the first half of the twentieth century, personified by the presumably Korean woman, and then a Caucasian man, holding up signs declaring that the Japanese eating machine is indeed a monster?

Bravo, Family Guy. Bravo.

...

Random mention of Korea in American entertainment media of the day

That could be anything.

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[UPDATED] Maybe it's supposed to be accents grave and aigu

I guess "chinky eyes" really is becoming a thing:

Last month at a Starbucks Coffee location in Alpharetta, Georgia, two Korean customers -- who are not native English speakers -- discovered that their barista had identified them by drawing "chinky eyes" on their drinks. You know, where they usually write your name? OH NO THEY DIDN'T. Yes, they did.

You cannot tell me those are both just two random squiggles on those cups. I'm told that the customers immediately complained to the store manager, who did not defend the drawings or offer some kind of bullshit explanation, but simply apologized. And that's it. Oh, sorry for the racist way we run our coffee joint.

I guess he's not "angry asian man" for nothing. I would have suggested the pair hold out for free Starbucks vouchers — that's what I got when Starbucks gave me the worst bout of food poisoning ever after they kept using the milk in their refrigerator in spite of a four-hour blackout that had hit the place.

Anyway, along with Chick-Fil-A, this seems to be an Asian-mocking trend, started by Miley Cyrus (I know that's not true; please don't send me letters), so I'm going to suggest to all who are on the fence about whether or not this is offensive, that they avoid the following emoticons.

` ´ 

We've already established that this is a no-no. 

OO

If you work at a Starbucks in Seoul and this is 

how you wish to identify your White customer, please stop.

O O

   >

No, that's even worse.

O O

oo

Don't make fun of people with big noses or flaring nostrils.

oo

´ `

Don't make fun of people with Pancho Villa mustaches. 

o

OO

/ || \

/ \

Identifying big-boobed women is also a no-no.

I shall stop now. The humor here is starting to exhibit diminishing returns. Plus, it's very, very late here. 

UPDATE:
I finally realized why the cups looked so familiar: With the rounded "heads" formed by the lid and the "chinky eyes" accents grave et aigu, they're supposed to be the mushrooms from Fantasia! And that's not racist at all.

UPDATE 2 (February 15):
It took him nearly a week, but The Marmot's Hole (the K-blog of record™) finally put something up on this. (I had thought linking to TMH in my own post might have gotten his attention; also, someone in his own comment section mentioned it, I think.) The Marmot is a busy man.

UPDATE 3 (February 19):
OMG! It looks like some Starbucks employees really are doing the "big nose" thing on their cups (the third icon in my list above, after 코쟁이 and its variants, a derogatory indicator in Korea for foreigners, especially White people).

Courtesy of hardyandtiny at The Marmot's Hole, I give you "beady-eyed big nose":

Of course, that "nose" could just be a big "L." Does Starbucks sell anything that begins with "L"?

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Take Ŏnni

If ever there was a sign that North Korea may actually, really, sincerely be poised for a big change, this is it.



No, I'm not kidding.

(And yeah, when I was young, we did joke that A-ha was singing "Take ŏnni," or "Take Onmi" (언미 being my friend's kinda hot older sister). They were in fact singing "Take on me," which was just the first in a string of lyrics that made no sense whatsoever.

[Insert joke about North Korea finally catching up with the 1980s here.]

If this accordion quintet takes requests, I'd like them to take on Prince's "1999." I'll even go so far as to make up some suitable lyrics:

I was screaming when I wrote this,
I've never had to run so fast.
But I'm not in the Party, so I was not meant to last.


I started to write more, but it's already about bombs, being ready to roar, war being all around us, and an ominous voice saying, "Don't worry, I won't hurt u, I only want u 2 have some fun."

UPDATE:
The Wall Street Journal has some background on this video that has apparently gone viral over the weekend.

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Things kushibo learned today...

Taking a page from Ask A Korean, here are some things kushibo learned today (actually yesterday, since it's now 12:09 a.m.):

• Hulu gets its name from two Chinese homonyms, one supposedly meaning gourd and holder of precious things (葫蘆), and the other supposedly meaning interactive recording (互錄). I say "supposedly" because this may very well be like how the Chinese word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity (Crisitunity!).

• Back in the 1990s, Lisa Loeb informed my aesthetic ideal of nerdy-looking White girls. 

• Twenty-five years ago, George Michael did an elfin' good job hiding being gay.

• The former Surratt boarding house in Washington DC, where the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln took place, is now a Chinese restaurant. (I found this out after looking up The Conspirator, which I saw the night before.)

• There's a century-old restaurant not far from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles where, until last week, a decent cup of coffee cost 9¢. It's now half a dollar with tax. (The French dip sandwich was also invented there.)

• Korrean automakers Kia and Hyundai still lag in car brand perception.

• Some neighborhoods in Los Angeles, like Echo Park, look a lot like the jam-packed neighborhoods of Seoul. 

Japanese Korea

This is from the ancient globe in the lobby of the local library.

Note that Seoul is the only place name not rendered in Nihon•go.

I think this pre-WWII globe is there for decorative and historical reasons and not because of massive budget shortfalls that prevent them from buying a new one.

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Pumpkman Fever

As of yesterday, the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers* have been eaten.

Oh, wait, I take that back. I have some cranberry sauce in the fridge I'm planning to use in my oatmeal.

* Actually this is the last of the spawn of the leftovers. We had turkey that lasted for weeks, which was turned into soup, regular turkey as a main dish, turkey sandwiches, turkey á la king, and eventually a delicious turkey quiche. But to make the quiche, we had to buy a quart of half-and-half and pie shells, and the leftover H&H and the pie shells were used to make the pumpkin pie you see here (with Libby's that was on sale). The last of the turkey was in fact eaten the day before yesterday (in a delicious turkey rice soup). 

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South Korea hands Yellow Sea islands over to North Korea

Or at least, that's what Google Maps would have you believe.

So I was looking for an aerial view of Paengnyŏng-do the other day. That's one of the Sŏhae-odo (서해5도), the so-called "Five Islands of the West Sea" which are technically a part of the City of Inch'ŏn (인천광역시) but hug the coast of North Korea.

The Northern Limit Line (or NLL, the blue line above), which has formed the de facto maritime border between the ROK and DPRK since the Korean War armistice in 1953, is drawn in such a way that these islands form what would be a "natural" maritime border, one that follows the universally accepted principle of equidistance from populated land on the North Korean and South Korean sides.

The North Koreans, however, insist on the red line in the graphic. It ignores South Korea's Five Islands of the West Sea and runs equidistant from the mainland, with corridors South Korea can use to access its islands (and fish, presumably). It has become a very contentious issue lately, and North Korea has used it as a pretext to attack Yŏnpyŏng-do, ostensibly to sink the Ch'ŏnan, and engage in other sea battles out there.

Note that these islands are not disputed territory (former US Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg's words notwithstanding), and they were ROK-held even before the Korean War (the islands and the Ongjin Peninsula just above them are south of the 38°N line (the Thirty-eighth Parallel) that was Korea's Mason-Dixon Line (the KNTO should put a sign up like that: "Welcome to 38-Line! It's Mason-dixon Line of Korea!" including those capitalization and article errors).

And so that makes it quite odd that Google Maps would list this key territory (one that makes Inchon a very long city, though not as long as Honolulu) as North Korean. You see, as I typed P-a-e-n-g-n-y-o-n-g, a list with various options for my search would pop up, each selection getting more precise and specific as I went along. Finally, Google Maps offered "Paengnyong Do North Korea." There was no biased input on my part.

Interestingly, though, if I use the Revised Romanization and type Baengnyeong (the Paengnyong spelling is based on McCune-Reischauer), a proper South Korean address appears. Hmm...

Google Maps doesn't list Yonpyong-do, but asks if you are looking for Yeonpyeong Do, which it lists as in South Korea. However, check out the list if you type in Y-e-o-n-p-y-e-o-n-g and see what pops up:

Yup. Check out number four. That "Yeonpyeong-ri" is the principal village on Yŏnpyŏng-do Island, and Google Maps has it listed as North Korean territory. Below is visual verification.

This is very sloppy work on the part of Google. What's next? Saying Calexico is part of Mexico just because they rhyme? (Though frankly, they can have it.)

Mapapropisms can happen to anyone, even some big names in media. The BBC apparently sent a drunken Mancunian out on a dinghy to redraw the NLL, and the Wall Street Journal ceded the US territory of Saipan to South Korea. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

But don't worry. I'm not going to go all VANK on Google (although I wouldn't rule out VANK going all VANK, since that's what they do). But it does make me wonder: Can I now no longer trust the accuracy of what I find when I search on the Google?

...

Getting ready for 2012...

Remember the movie 2012, where John Cusack and his brood barely escape Los Angeles in a small plane just as major pieces of the L.A. Basin crack apart and fall into the sea?

Well, this bit of news — and pictures like that above — had images from that flick popping into my head. (Images from 2012 really disturb me.)

Indeed, this stuff about a 600-foot stretch of San Pedro's Paseo del Mar breaking up and falling into the ocean seemed an eery foreshadowing of the grandest snuff film ever made (all but 0.0001% of the population outside Africa dies — though they continue to have excellent cell phone service up until the very end).

...

Going all the Weiwei (possibly NSFW)

Kushibo wishes he had minions who would get naked and/or pay millions of dollars in (bogus) fines if I asked them to. Instead, Kushibo can barely squeeze a latte out of anyone.

But if you're Ai Weiwei, your supporters will strip and then take pictures of themselves to show their support. Then they'll post them online. This is enough to get them slapped with investigation for pornography by Chinese authorities.

There are more photos here, but be warned: most are men. Be also warned that someone thought it would be funny to throw in a picture of the Dear Leader and see if anyone noticed. (Or is Kim Jong-il secretly a supporter of decadent Chinese nudity?)

(Oh, and this post would come with a full-blown, bold-faced "NSFW!" warning, but I don't know where you work; this kinda thing may be ay-okay in your office place.)

UPDATE:
D'oh! I forgot to include anything on why Mr Ai Weiwei is a famous artist in the first place. I've seen his work here and there, but my most profound "encounter" with his work was viewing this 14-minute documentary on the production of his presentation of a 100 million (?) fake sunflower seeds (all ceramic and each hand painted) at The Tate in London (which is where my camera got stolen in 2007).



I also forgot to mention one of my original points in writing this: It smells of the tribulations of Professor Ma Kwangsoo (마광수), the Yonsei University professor who was imprisoned in 1995 when authorities deemed his novel Happy Sara to be obscene and pornographic, the same accusations thrown at Ai Weiwei.

South Korea was still sloughing off the vestiges of dictatorial rule, and it would be a while before the authorities realized they end up creating heroes out of their ideological foes when they treat them this way. It may be a while before the communists in Beijing realize how ham-fisted such heavy-handed tactics can be.

...

Updates to post with old-timey photographs

In the middle of trying to squeeze major, major work and school projects through the pipeline, but I did take a few moments to add photographs to this post from 2009 about foreigners in Korea "behaving badly" — a hundred years ago.

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Busy but...

As you may have noticed, I've been a tad busy so I can't keep up with my usual five-posts-per-day rate of production. Just thought I'd let my loyal readers (and people who loathe me so much that they obsessively scour my blog for things they can mock me for or use against me) know that family, work, and school are what's keeping me away from the CREATE POST window and not some lack of interest.

In the meantime, I leave you with a favorite post of mine you might have missed, along with a request for possible guest bloggers and The Sonagi Consortium bloggers.

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UPDATED: First pi, now pizza pie

Wow. I guess I should add pizza to my list of things Korea invented.

(With the Dokdo posters in the background, it's clear someone knows how to poke fun at some of the Korea-as-irrational-nationalists meme.)

(HT to you know who you are.)

UPDATE #1:
It turns out that the Grand Narrative has a post on this, which is an interesting read even if I don't necessarily agree with his opening paragraph:

To put it mildly, Koreans don’t often use satire and irony in their popular culture. And when non-Koreans do? Hell, that can even get them deported.

For starters, it seems there are a number of films that employ a great deal of satire and irony (from The Host to The President's Last Bang, though I may be defining irony different from him. My own attempts at satire and irony have been called out by my critics, so I could just be a loon. To be honest, for the longest time I thought irony is what we do after we finish the washee.

As for the Babopalooza deportation* issue, I think the case can be made that they got kicked out not for making fun of Korea (which identifiable people do all the time on blogs) but for violating the restrictive terms of their visa, just as thousands of people have gotten nabbed, fined, deported, or otherwise punished for. I mean, the same law back in the late 1990s prevented me from going to grad school while working full time until I finally managed to get the right visa (when new visas offered more opportunities for me). No one at my grad school was "making money" from attending grad school (it was the opposite!) but Immigration still came in to enforce the law. The folks at Immigration do take these things seriously, as many can attest, and saying that they were persecuted for their content is like, well, saying that whatever bad thing happened to you happened because you're a foreigner (meme #81).

In other words, this isn't [insert humorless authoritarian regime here].

But be careful, because in the opening of the above fauxcumentary [insert humorless authoritarian regime here] was poked fun of as well. They and their obsession with what is claimed by Koreans to be from Korea. Really, someone did a great job mining some Internet memes here.

UPDATE #2:
Japan Focus takes an interesting and scholarly look at the Mr Pizza viral ad and what it all means, including how Japanese interpreted it. The Marmot's Hole has a post about that post, which had focused on an earlier Marmot's Hole post.


* No one was actually deported, according to the above Busanhaps link:

First, no one was fired or deported due to the police investigation. However, several participants who were due to start new teaching jobs the following March, found that their schools were unable to process their visa applications due to the investigation, and therefore the schools had to withdraw the job offers. Unable to start a new job, some of these people had no choice but to leave the country when their old visas expired (I believe there were three such cases). Strangely, those of us who were renewing or extending contracts and visas at our current schools had no problem, and could stay in Korea. Of the people who were forced to leave, all eventually returned to Korea after a few months when the investigation was completed, and found just as good, or better jobs.

I'd say, "put that in your pipe and smoke it," but Lord knows what problems smoking anything other than tobacco would bring in Korea.

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Scenes from A(la Moana) Mall (Or: 10월의 크리스마스)

So I spent much of the day yesterday at Ala Moana Shopping Center, Honolulu's premier mall and a mecca for tourists (Japanese and Korean in particular). Armed with my iPhone 4, I like taking pictures of the mundane stuff all around me, though some of it seems downright iconic at times.

Our first stop was Sears, where "M" was shopping for a golfing-related gift for her mother. While Sears's selection of cutesy golf stuff was extremely limited (i.e., nothing), they were already going full force with Christmas paraphernalia. Mind you, it's October — the beginning of October, not even Columbus Day — and this is what's on display. I guess they really want to corner the market early on being the "Christmas Shop."

I actually did go into the Apple Store to see if they knew what time on October 7 they would start pre-orders for the iPhone 4S (I'm not getting one, but "M" wants to upgrade from her two-year-old iPhone 3Gs). I have to admit, I was also curious to see how the Apple Store might be honoring Steve Jobs. As I expected, there was a picture with people laying leis around it.

I'm guessing the Ala Moana powers-that-be, who don't even like you plugging in your laptop in the food court because it distracts from the aesthetic appeal of Panda Express and some burger shop behind you, may have been telling the Apple Store folks to keep the outdoor memorial low key and as neat as possible. Actually, the above setup was originally on the ground, but by the time we did our respective shopping and came back this way, someone had thought to put a bench out for the picture. By the way, we weren't the only ones taking pictures of this.

And then there's this. I wear a small or medium at Old Navy, but I couldn't help but notice this XXL shirt. Please note what is written just below the plus-sized size.

Oh, and kudos to Old Navy for not making everything in China.

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Things invented in Korea: An incomplete list

• metal moveable type

• ondol, under-floor heating

• seedless watermelon (or not)

• bromance

• Don't Ask, Don't Tell

• thundersticks

• kyopo angst

• kayagŭm

• pi

• mass-market MP3 player

• some of the stem cell technology

• Christmas trees

...