Cougar with a tramp stamp

My sister is a bit older than I, so I have no idea if she played with Barbie dolls. I'm thinking no (our dad was in grad school at the time, so our family was poor — lucky us). And I'm pretty sure she never got Barbies for her own daughter. 

[above: That is not — I repeat, NOT — a Chinese character tattoo on Barbie's neck. That model doesn't come out until 2011.]

Barbie turns fifty this year, and in keeping up with the times, Mattel has started selling "tattoo Barbie." I really, really, really wish I were making that up:

We begin in Southern California, where, just in time for spring, Mattel Inc. has released Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie. The doll comes with a set of more than 40 tiny tattoo stickers that can be placed on her body. Also included is a faux tattoo gun with wash-off tats that kids can use to ink themselves.

A spokeswoman for the El Segundo toy maker said it was a great way for youngsters to be creative with their pint-sized gal pal. But some parents are horrified by this body-art Barbie, labeling her the "tramp stamp" queen of playtime.

I'm afraid I'm going to make the word "pornification" a bit of a cliché, so I'll just say this: America... hell in a handbasket.

Meanwhile, Mattel is stepping up marketing in Barbie's country of manufacture: the six-story House of Barbie in Shanghai:

It's a multimillion-dollar bet that its 11 1/2 -inch plastic toy will appeal to Shanghai's material girls, even in this horrible economy.

"There's no reason why in five to 10 years, China shouldn't be the biggest market in the world for us," said Richard Dickson, Barbie's general manager, sitting on a lattice boudoir bench on the store's fourth floor, where girls can design their own dolls.

The store also contains a salon where moms and daughters can get facials and manicures.

China is a place where one-child moms dote over their daughter's every whim. I smell success, but there are doubters:

But there are plenty of doubters who point out that you need only go into a Chinese home. You won't find many girls playing with dolls, let alone dolls with blond hair and blue eyes.

Ah, but that's the key to many entrepreneurial ventures: Don't sell them what you need, but make them feel they need what you sell. We'll see if "Shanghai Barbie" ("with bigger eyes, a rounder face, and a softer complexion ... no tattoos") ends up changing the face of China — or even makes the girls of China want to change their face.

God help us all. (And a note to parents: If there is even the remotest chance your child will go online to Google "tattoo Barbie," please please please make sure that "Safe Search" is on.)

Run amok?

Nomad posted a couple stories about a group of USFK personnel in Uijongbu who robbed a taxi driver and then locked him in the trunk of his car. Last week they admitted what they had done, and we're waiting to see how the case will be handled.

A commenter named justpassingthru through claims that this same group of people has beaten down a bar owner and his wife, but they were still running around. Nomad himself is incredulous about the claim:

So you're saying that's correct? The same guys previously beat up a bar owner and his wife? I'm having a hard time believing they did that and were still walking around free.

If it is true (and I will retract some of this if it turns out it isn't), then I have something to say about this. [Before I begin, I want to make clear that I'm saying this from a personally held point-of-view that USFK is mostly well-behaved and that the chinbo "progressives" who want to push USFK off the peninsula to remove what they believe is the primary obstacle to peaceful unification seek to blow any incident out of proportion.]

It is this kind of thing that, when reported, feeds the common Korean public perception (well, mostly misperception as far as I'm aware) that too many USFK personnel have for too long run amok without fear of real punishment by a military organization that lets things slide when Korean nationals are victims of such crime by USFK personnel.*

This, plus the taxi jumpers and the alleged stabber in Shinchon who managed to make a spectacle on camera (GI Korea suggests the half-naked guy [seen above in what GI Korea describes as a staged photo] with the yakuza-esque tattoos who was willingly breaking regulations against being in an off-limits area "was probably a good kid just out having a good time with his friends"), are a composite image that, sadly, can eclipse the many good deeds of thousands of law-abiding, hard-working USFK personnel.

*A proper refutation of this perception would address how USFK personnel crime is taken seriously by USFK, not point out, correctly or not, that the Korean judicial system does not take seriously crimes committed by Korean nationals against USFK personnel.