UPDATED: Beaten black and blue by the Pinkberry founder

Yeah, I've had a bit of fun in the past with the name "pinkberry" and that of its Korea-based rival "Red Mango." But this is serious, if it sounds the way the LAPD is making it sound.

It seems that Young Lee (I know three people with that name), one of the co-founders of the addictive Crackberry Pinkberry yogurt chain along with fellow kyopo entrepreneur Shelly Hwang, has been arrested for "beating down" a homeless man who'd approached him in his car asking for money. According to the LAPD, Lee and a passenger in his car attacked the homeless man with a tire iron. Yikes.

The incident occurred over half a year ago but Mr Lee was arrested only this past weekend when he was at LAX:

The incident took place in June 2011 on an off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway at Vermont Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Young Lee was stopped at a light when he was approached by a transient seeking money, police said.

Words were exchanged, and Lee and another man in the car chased the homeless man and "beat him down" with the tire iron, police Capt. Paul Vernon said.

"This case is emblematic of how the homeless are among the most vulnerable in our society." said Vernon, commanding officer of the Central Detective Division.The extent of the homeless man's injuries hasn't been disclosed.

Detectives spent several months probing the case against Lee, who was in South Korea for part of that time.

Lee, 47, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday night by the LAX Fugitive Task Force, which includes LAPD officers and FBI agents. He was booked at the LAPD's Pacific Division station, according to online Sheriff's Department booking records. Bail was set at $60,000 but the records do not indicate whether Lee was released.

Nobody deserves to be beaten down with a tire iron, and it seems to me a big chunk of the story is missing. Was Mr Lee intoxicated? Does he have arrests for other acts of violence or is this a one-off? (It seems out of character for a yogurt-monger but maybe not for a former kickboxer.)

On the other hand, despite the LAPD's statement that homeless are "among the most vulnerable," some of them can also be among the most aggressive. Here in Honolulu and back in Orange County, the homeless are a widely passive and non-menacing lot, but I've had my property or person threatened by homeless individuals in Los Angeles and San Francisco (e.g., most commonly, being told that if I give a nearby homeless person the money he's asking, he'll be sure to watch my rental car and be sure it remains safe, but if I don't pay and he doesn't watch it, who knows what terrible things might happen to it). And back in Seoul we've had occasional incidents of mentally ill homeless people killing subway commuters by pushing them into oncoming trains.

I don't mean this as a rant on the homeless, but the "most vulnerable" label is only half the story and I wonder if, as happened to me, the homeless man who approached Mr Lee's car did something threatening. Maybe, maybe not. I'm a bit incredulous that Mr Lee snapped for no good reason and a homeless man just happened to be there to receive his wrath.

Normally I wouldn't go this far with something that is pure speculation and ponderation, and I'm loath to "blame the victim," who might very well be nothing but a victim in this case, but when the LAPD offers an individual case as "emblematic" of something, that suggests they wish to make it a symbol and a cause célèbre, and I'd like to know if that's warranted.

Lee's publicized arrest is coming on the heels of a veritable serial killer recently being on the loose in neighboring Orange County, a murderer who'd been targeting homeless people and violently stabbing them to death. So far four people living on the street have lost their lives, and although a suspect has been caught, the situation has brought attention to their plight and vulnerability. The beating death of Kelly Thomas by police in the northern OC community of Fullerton last summer (and the subsequent cover-up) has also shone a light on the situation.

UPDATE:
The Los Angeles Times is finally coming out with a bit more of the story, although it doesn't absolve Mr Lee of his violent reaction. He claims words were exchanged with the homeless man who was sporting a sexually offensive tattoo:

A founder of the Pinkberry yogurt chain allegedly beat up a homeless man with a tire iron because he found the transient's sexually explicit tattoo offensive, according to L.A. prosecutors. ...

Words were exchanged, and Lee and another man in the car chased the homeless man and "beat him down" with the tire iron, police Capt. Paul Vernon said.

According to a statement by the district attorney's office, Lee felt disrespected by the tattoo. Officials did not provide a detailed description of the tattoo.

Well, now I'm really curious. There is such a thing as "fighting words," and I wonder if there was any element to that in this mystery marking.

UPDATE 2:
The LAT has its third story today about the assault. Through his attorney, Mr Lee is saying that he felt "threatened" and "at risk." And it looks like Mr Lee's attorney is echoing some of the comments I made above:

"It's inappropriate for the LAPD and D.A. to make their arguments in the press," said Lee's criminal defense attorney, Philip Kent Cohen. "As the evidence comes out, the reality will be much different than has been presented."

Cohen said there were a total of six people in Lee's car. The victim "made explicit threats as if he had a weapon," Cohen said.

"All of the people in the car felt at risk and felt threatened," Cohen said. "All of this will be flushed out in court."

Cohen said that his client has cooperated with LAPD detectives from the beginning. The lawyer said Lee contacted investigators as soon as he found out that they had visited his Malibu home and issued a warrant for his arrest.

This is looking less clearcut than first presented by the LAPD. The Los Angeles Times was a bit sloppy and premature in how they presented this, even if it turns out that Mr Lee was completely in the wrong, which I now have doubts about.

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Huntsman has left the building

My favorite GOP candidate for president, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, has decided to call it quits.

I am terribly disappointed by this. Governor Huntsman was by far my favorite, even if I don't agree with all his views. First of all, he did actually attempt health care reform, which is a far cry from the rest of the field, who just whine about Obamacare without acknowledging that their party has done nothing real to deal with this issue after killing Hillarycare back in the mid-1990s. (Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is an exception to this, of course, but in order to appeal to the far right, he's running on a platform of killing the same Obamacare that is modeled after his own Romneycare.)



Governor Huntsman also has shown not only that he can work with the other side (he was President Obama's ambassador to China) but also that he sees tremendous value in doing so. His quick response to Mitt Romney's absurd criticism of Huntsman for working with Obama was laudatory and downright inspiring: Romney's attitude of party over country is precisely what is wrong with this country (he says as much at about 1:20 or 1:30 in the above video).

In case you missed what I'm talking about, here's a post-debate piece from just before the New Hampshire primary:

Huntsman: “I was criticized last night by Governor Romney for putting my country first … He criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in China. Yes, under a Democrat. Like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy. They're not asking what political affiliation the president is. I want to be very clear with the people here in New Hampshire and this country: I will always put my country first.”

Here was Romney’s response: “I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles and doing everything in our power to promote an agenda that does not include President Obama's agenda.”

Huntsman’s invocation of his two sons serving in the military is an essential reminder of a bedrock American tradition: our servicemen and women do not make their service contingent on the political persuasion of the president. That’s because they are patriots first, not partisans. Huntsman deserved the applause he received for that line.

Romney’s response seems to me at least as remarkable: “I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles …” That is the opposite of John McCain’s 2008 campaign slogan, “Country First.” Romney’s answer is “Party First,” “Ideology First.”

But the right wing that has a chokehold on the Republican Party today has been fed so much red meat that they see that as weak, socialist, and un-American, among other things.

Like I said, I don't agree with everything Huntsman stands for, but neither do I feel the same about Obama. But with the exit of Huntsman, we're down to few or no candidates who I would feel comfortable with as president for the next four to eight years. In fact, the most disappointing thing about this is that Huntsman turned around and endorsed Romney, whose flip-flopping and running away from the best part of his record in order to pander to the right makes him a lousy choice for president.

The only good I can see from that move is the possibility that he might be picked as a running mate for Romney, but with the Religious Right being so concerned about Romney's Mormonism, I don't see Mitt doubling down on what is a major source of concern among many conservative voters.

This is terribly disappointing. He was by far my favorite, in part because (a) he actually attempted health care reform in his state and (b) he saw the value in going across the aisle to make things work.

Right now, if I were to have to choose someone to vote for, I guess I'd pick Newt Gingrich, mainly because he has shown, during the Clinton years, that he is able to hammer out important deals with the Democrats that get the country back on track. Pragmatism and country before ideology, at least on the budget deficit and the national debt (not so much on health care).

Frankly, though, Huntsman was the last truly electable candidate running. Mitt Romney faces an uphill battle with his own party because of his past support for universal health care, his Mormonism, and lately his history of laying off people. Gingrich faces an uphill battle with non-conservatives due to his abrasiveness and his history of infidelity (hypocritical infidelity, no less). Ron Paul has some great ideas but is a simplistic kook on others. Though he demonstrates flexibility over ideology, Rick Santorum holds tight to homophobic views that are at odds with independent and Democratic voters, while his own record of political advantage-making will likely come back to haunt him in the general election.

Well, there's still Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico who was wildly popular with Republicans and Democrats with viable positions on a number of issues. Inexplicably and inexcusably, Governor Johnson has been excluded from all the Republican debates, as if he is not a serious candidate and as if he is not even running. In all seriousness, this is an absolute travesty of our democratic system. Perhaps he wasn't invited because he stands for drug legalization and believes same-sex marriage should be allowed, but is this all that different from Ron Paul?

If you find yourself flirting with some of Ron Paul's more sensible ideas but you're turned off by his wackiness on others, go check out Gary Johnson. With Huntsman gone, he's my next favorite candidate.

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A tale of rescue underscores the sordid situation surrounding refugees hiding in China

In the Los Angeles Times, Seoul correspondent John Glionna tells the story of Krys Lee, a Korean-American writer and daughter of a sometimes abusive pastor, who has sacrificed her money and risked her safety to rescue one Mr Kim, a troubled refugee from North Korea who Ms Lee describes as having been held captive in China by a Korean missionary who had different plans (involving returning to North Korea to proselytize) for Mr Kim.

The story underscores the conflicts between and within the various groups along the underground railroad ferrying people out of North Korea and hiding them in China until they can make it to a foreign diplomatic mission or another country. In many cases, missionaries and religious groups are risking their lives to rescue North Koreans, but there are indeed some bad apples among them.

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Mitt the Ripper

Being one of those people who was appalled by the Citizens United decision long before Obama told me I should be, I absolutely love the way Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart have been edumacating the viewing public on what a threat to our democracy it is when we have unfettered cash pouring into our electoral process.

It's bonus points when they make hilarious things like this:

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"If corporations are people, then Mitt Romney is a serial killer." Gotta love it.

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Kids react (the way Kushibo does) to K-pop

So while I'm waiting to be picked up at Honolulu's Hawaiian Air Terminal the other day, I'm checking out this video, suggested by a Yonsei alumna friend on her Facebook page, about the plight of one Russell Green, an adoptee who wasn't fully adopted and now faces deportation...



... and that's when YouTube suggested I also check out "Kids React to K-Pop," because forced deportation of a Korea-born adoptee is naturally associated with American kids making funny faces at the silliness that is K-pop.



I guess they'd have the same keywords: kids, Korean, US, freaked out.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the K-pop video just because the kids' attitude is pretty much my own when it comes to the monster that K-pop has become.

Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled that Korea is developing so much soft power with its pop culture offerings lately, primarily in the form of movies, music, and dramas, but I'm just not into pop music at all. I love Korean movies and have a whole bunch in my Netflix queue. Though I don't watch as many Korean television programs as I used to (my ex-fiancée and I used to do that as one of our things, but since we broke up it just wasn't fun anymore and I got out of the habit), I am happy that hulu has gone hallyu.

But I never got into the whole music scene, of any country. There are too many made-for-TV pop idols whose major claim to fame is that they wear hot pants and dance around looking cutesy and act aegyotistical. I'd rather find age- and behavior-appropriate women in real life, so I have about as much interest in The Wonder Girls as I do Miley Cyrus. Sure, if I have a chance to meet with them and chat them up or more, I will, but it's just not something I spend a lot of time on.

Anyway, it seems that K-pop has become a thing in the US, with people even reacting to the reaction. About five years ago, the Korea-bashing naysayers were questioning whether K-pop or hallyu could make a dent outside of Korea, but now we've seen it wash over the rest of East Asia, including Japan, and now it seems to be getting a serious foothold in the United States and Europe. I never had the confidence that this would happen, but I certainly wasn't pooh-poohing the idea, either.

Frankly, as long as it doesn't attract horny folks to Korea who think that teaching in a secondary school would be like a smorgasbord, I'm all for this expansion of South Korean soft power. Heck, I someday see the potential for the love of Girls' Generation, along with the NBA, to bring together Kim Jong-un and some current or future American POTUS or Secretary of State.

And finally, remember Russell Green. There's something fundamentally wrong when his video has barely a thousand hits and the "Kids React to K-pop" video gets a million or so.

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Death to US Imperialist Wolves and Happy Hanukkah

30 Rock is back. And while its season premiere, occurring in January to accommodate Tina Fey's pregnancy, was not the most gut-wrenchingly hilarious episode ever, it did have some laugh-out-loud moments that had me frightening the cat.

But why am I talking about it here, on this blog dedicated to ROK-related news, Korean cultural issues, and gripes about what kinetic balls of narcissism my nephews and nieces are? There is indeed a Korean connection: You may recall last spring that the season finale had comedienne Margaret Cho, a favorite among the gay for her gender ambiguity, playing Kim Jong-il.

When we left things off, the Dear Leader had just kidnapped the wife of Jack Donaghy (played by Words With Friends aficionado Alec Baldwin). Well, it seems that Margaret Cho has lost what could have been a  lucrative gig when the Dear Leader joined the Great Gulag and Re-Education Camp in the sky ground.

I feel ya, Margaret Cho (in the figurative, empathetic sense only). Kim Jong-il's death has cost me several hundred dollars as well, in the form of a weaker South Korean currency. This was the natural result of fears of political instability on the Korean Peninsula, worries about rogue nukes going a missin', a sudden dearth of jokes on late night television, and the permanent shelving of plans for a sequel to Team America: World Police.

(Indeed, the KRW is a very sensitive currency, which tends to fall precipitously whenever there is bad news in South Korea, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, South Central Los Angeles, or either of the Dakotas. I've already sold short in anticipation of whatever will happen during the South Carolina primary. And no, I'm not exaggerating. We have recently seen the Korean won plunge on a daily basis due to the Euro-zone not getting its act together, the Moody Blues' credit downgrade of the United States, and either Nicolas Sarkozy or Silvio Berlusconi getting an erection lasting for more than four hours. Joe Biden sneezing would cost me at least fifty bucks right now.)

Um, anyway, in lieu of Kim Jong-il, the writers brought in Kim Jong-un, a man-child whose name is apparently even harder to pronounce than his father's. I have not yet finished watching the episode, however, so all I can do is say, "Hmm, this would be a good time to mention any one of my posts on famous non-Koreans wearing hanbok" (the latter is a lot funnier if you're as drunk as I was when I wrote it).

UPDATE:
I finally watched the entire episode and, as I suspected, the brief mention of the Ling-and-Lee-esque detainment of Jack Donaghy's wife in North Korea did not go beyond the above sight gag. I'm guessing they plan to make her "rescue" a bigger focus later, and thus will drag this out a bit while Rachel McAdams Elizabeth Banks (who plays Mrs Donaghy) finishes up a few projects.

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Hyundai Elantra chosen as North American Car of the Year

Given that Hyundai won this just a few years ago with its luxury Genesis offering, maybe this is becoming a thing.

From CNN:

Detroit automakers got shut out of honors at their hometown's auto show Monday as the Hyundai Elantra and the Range Rover Evoque won North American car and truck of the year awards.

The win by Hyundai is the second time it captures car of the year honors at the show in four years. Its luxury Genesis won the award in 2009.

It also marked another sign of the growing competitive threat that the Korean automaker poses to Detroit. Hyundai Motor's two brands, Hyundai and Kia, captured nearly 9% of the U.S. market in 2011, nearly double the share it had five years ago.

"Sporty yet sensible. Luxurious, yet affordable. Spunky, but safe," said Jayne O'Donnell of USA Today, one of the judges. "The Elantra is a series of paradoxes and every one is another argument for the latest impressive entry in the Hyundai lineup."

A car must be all new or substantially changed in order to be eligible, and the 2012 model is a major reworking from the 2011 and earlier models, which were also respectable (I had a 2009 Elantra as a rental and quite enjoyed its zippiness and roominess).

The gist of the Elantra's selection is that it is a pretty nice car in terms of safety, reliability, affordability, and sportiness, but which feels like a much more expensive car.

For a small car it doesn't seem like a small car. My aunt, who is in the market for one to replace her dilapidated Honda minivan now that she doesn't have to drive a whole mess of kids around, remarked that you could fit a couple bodies in the trunk.

(HT to my mom, who loves her Hyundai SUV, even if it isn't exactly easy on the MPGs)

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Kim Jong-un caption contest #2012-01

The Great Successor is proving to be quite camera-friendly. He's everywhere and doing everything, apparently taking his cues from the Dukakis '88 playbook.

And all this is just begging to be turned into caption contests, for which I'd say we're well overdue.

I'll start:
"I'm not kidding around, you guys. I'm stuck!"

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And coming in at #42

South Korea made the New York Times list of "The Forty-five Places To Go in 2012." Not a single place, but the entire country, or at least the golf courses:

South Korea is redefining just how luxurious golf resorts can be. A slew of new private clubs — the kind with six-digit membership fees, designs by celebrity architects and clubhouses that look like modern art museums — have opened recently in the country.

The most prestigious is Haesley Nine Bridges, just outside Seoul, with a clubhouse covered by a huge, sinuous web of wooden beams (it also features one of Jeff Koons’s giant balloon toy sculptures).

Then there’s the Ananti Club, also a commuter’s distance from Seoul: 486 acres containing three courses nestled in the Yumyŏngsan forest, with a clubhouse, designed by the architect Ken Min, built almost entirely underground. And the futuristic Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea, which opened last year in the financial center of Songdo, has a huge, undulating clubhouse designed by the California architect Mehrdad Yazdani.

In 2015, South Korea will be the host of the Presidents Cup for the first time; apparently there are some tournament-worthy courses to go with all those fancy new clubhouses.

Go and read about the other forty-four, which include the Florence's art scene, luxury accommodations in Antarctica, and the nation of Panama, flush with investors, retirees, and visitors in the wake of the same wave of free-trade frenzy that brought us the KORUS FTA.

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A kinder and gentler abomination?

I am not the only one who has wondered out loud whether Prodigious Progeny Kim Jong-ŭn could actually turn out to be North Korea's Gorbachev, or at least North Korea's Deng Xiaoping. And in that vein, it's easy to imagine (or at least hope) that a birthday amnesty could be a signal of better things to come.

Or maybe North Korea's Dukakis?

From the BBC:

North Korea says it will grant an amnesty for prisoners to mark the birthdays of two late leaders.

State news agency KCNA said that the amnesty would begin from 1 February, in honour of Kim Jong-il, who died last month, and his father Kim Il-sung.

No information was given as to how many prisoners would be released or who.

Amnesty International estimates as many as 200,000 people are being held in political prison camps around the country.

KCNA said that the amnesty embodied the "noble, benevolent and all-embracing politics of President Kim Il-sung and leader Kim Jong-il".

The Dear Leader's seventieth birthday and the Great Leader's hundredth birthday are both auspicious occasions (yeah, yeah, I know they're dead, but birthdays get marked anyway, just like with Jesus and Buddha, though the latter are likely in an environment closer to room-temperature), and that could be just the excuse that the reformists — if in fact they exist — may need in order to release thousands and therefore nudge things toward normalcy.

We'll have to wait and see.

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Is this becoming a thing?

First we have "Ching" and "Chong" at Chick-Fil-A, and now we have a Papa John's employee referring to her customer — where it shows up on the receipt — as "lady chinky eyes."

Okay, then. What makes it go from egregiously racist and bad to egregiously racist and worse is the lame-ass excuse offered up by the assistant manager:

"I didn't think [the cashier] was trying to offend the lady in any type of way, but she did. It wasn't meant to harm her in any way. But I apologize on behalf of my staff for that."

Geez, that Minhee Cho is pretty thin-skinned to be offended by that. (You can't see my eyes rolling, but they are.)

To be honest, though, I'm starting to be a little surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often, since apparently a lot of food service companies are employing bored, minimally paid, and barely literate teenagers to fill in descriptions and/or names of customers who come into their stores. Add to that litany of adjectives "compromised when it comes to notions about what is acceptable to say in public regarding race, ethnicity, and gender issues."

Yes, I blame rap music and hip-hop and shock culture and all that stuff, where calling people bitches or the N-word is promoted and raised up as normal and acceptable, and where racial or ethnic humor is no longer frowned up but is considered edgy and cool.

That girl who wrote that should lose her job, but perhaps a learning lesson could be snatched from this. A beer summit, but with pizza and no president. People have got to re-learn this stuff of basic decency which somehow inexplicably the American culture seems to have unlearned.

That's right, my 2012 new year's resolution was to turn into an old coot ranting about kids today (except that it's not just kids... it's people the same age as this Gen Xer, as well as our parents).

I've also resolved to lose three or four kilograms and get rock-hard abs, but that's a post for another time.

Resting heart rate: 51 bpm

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Don't trust Americans who speak foreign languages

Well, that seems to be the message of this ad that attacks Mandarin-speaking former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, purportedly by a Ron Paul supporter:



As the Washington Post makes clear, we don't know for sure that this really was put together by a Ron Paul supporter, but given the way no small number of them think, it's not a stretch of the imagination to believe that.

Yeah, it might turn out that this is a not-so-terribly-elaborate attempt to hurt Ron Paul, not Jon Huntsman, but I've seen more ham-handed political ads or acts than this, so for now it seems plausible. What I think is more telling about it is how it underscores this persistent American traits of (a) distrust of those who are smart and well educated, (b) being proudly monolingual to the point that those who are fluent in other languages may be regarded as un-American, and (c) historically and hysterically loathing people from Asia as perpetual foreigners.

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The case of Mohammad Salman Hamdani

Well, Happy New Year, everybody. I said goodbye to 2011 and greeted 2012 watching Coldplay perform on television here in Las Vegas, after which I took my young cousin out into the cold (mid-30s at that point) and watched the spectacular pyrotechnics from a safe and sane distance. This was apparently a record-setting New Year's Eve, which is a welcome sign for Nevadans.

Had I been in Seoul, I would have marched from my apartment down to Chongno to either watch or hear the new year literally being rung in. One thing that was cool, though, was that NBC Nightly News highlighted the Seoul celebration in their December 31 broadcast.

Anyway, I'm still on the Mainland stamping out sparks and putting out fires in what has become a sometimes amusing but sometimes hair-pullingly galling health, financial, and emotional drama. Some day I may write about my big adventure in prose form; in the spirit of Shakespeare, whether t'is ultimately a comedy or a tragedy will depend on whether we all get out alive. 

I will be back to regular posting more either later in the week or by the middle of the month. The odd thing is, though, that Kim Jong-il's death and Kim Jong-un's cosmetic rise has pushed my hit rate up far higher than usual, even though I'm hardly writing any new stuff.

In the meantime, though I'd like to nudge you toward this story in the New York Times, about a Muslim Pakistani-American who was killed in the 9/11 terror attacks when he was responding to the emergency:

He was buried after the Sept. 11 attacks with full honors from the New York Police Department, and proclaimed a hero by the city’s police commissioner. He is cited by name in the Patriot Act as an example of Muslim-American valor.

And Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of two Muslim members of Congress, was brought to tears during a Congressional hearing in March while describing how the man, a Pakistani-American from Queens, had wrongly been suspected of involvement in the attacks, before he was lionized as a young police cadet who had died trying to save lives.

Despite this history, Mohammad Salman Hamdani is nowhere to be found in the long list of fallen first responders at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.

Nor can his name be found among those of victims whose bodies were found in the wreckage of the north tower, where his body was finally discovered in 34 parts.

Instead, his name appears on the memorial’s last panel for World Trade Center victims, next to a blank space along the south tower perimeter, with the names of others who did not fit into the rubrics the memorial created to give placements meaning. That section is for those who had only a loose connection, or none, to the World Trade Center.

A tragedy on top of tragedy that, frankly, reminded me of this bit of satire I wrote in August 2010 during the "Ground Zero Mosque" nonsense.

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