Archive: June 2, 1980

Here is another Time Magazine archive from the time of the Kwangju situation.

Monday, Jun. 02, 1980
Season of Spleen
Outright insurrection raises alarm about an invaluable Pacific ally

Lift martial law!" shouted the demonstrators. Others cried:

"Death to General Chun!" In South Korea's provincial capital of Kwangju, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed through the streets venting their anger at the martial-law government in power in Seoul and against the country's newest strongman, Lieut. General Chun Du Hwan. The turmoil soon turned into a full-scale insurrection. Rebellious citizens seized effective control of Kwangju, which is 175 miles south of Seoul, from the fleeing police. Rioting spread to 16 other towns of the province. After four days, more than 100 people had been killed and uncounted hundreds wounded. It was the most serious crisis in South Korea since the upheaval that brought down the regime of President Syngman Rhee in 1960 and began 19 years of military domination.

In Washington, the Carter Administration nervously urged the South Korean military leaders to exercise "maximum restraint," lest their actions lead to "dangerous miscalculation by external forces"—meaning, of course, the rulers of Communist North Korea. Washington had no reason to think that the Pyongyang government was in fact trying to take advantage of Seoul's troubles, but clearly the crisis carried with it the seeds of danger for both South Korea and its allies.

The rioting started two weeks ago, with a wave of student demonstrations in Seoul. The protests were aimed mostly against the martial law that has been in effect ever since the assassination of President Park Chung Hee seven months ago. The specific targets of these protests: the ineffectual President Choi Kyu Hah, 60, and, most of all, the authoritarian figure behind the President, Lieut. General Chun, 48. As both the head of the Defense Security Command and acting director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, Chun was already being regarded as the country's offstage military ruler.

Just as the first wave of student protests subsided, the government cracked down with a series of iron-fisted edicts and actions: a ban against all political activity, the closing of all university campuses and, finally, the summary arrest of hundreds of prominent politicians, busi nessmen and student leaders. Indeed, even the head of the governing Democratic Republican Party, Kim Jong Pil, was detained. The arrest that proved to be a decisive provocation, however, was that of the government's leading critic, Kim Dae Jung. To justify their actions, the authorities charged that he had connived to foment the recent unrest and to overturn the government.

As it happens, Kim Dae Jung is a native of South Cholla province, of which Kwangju (pop. 800,000) is the capital. Cholla is the poorest region of the country, and was consistently neglected by President Park during his 18 years in power. The people of Cholla have long complained of unfair treatment by the central government. Most of all, they resent the fact that their area has been deprived of the industrialization that has benefited the rest of the country. When they learned last week that the government in Seoul had arrested Kim Dae Jung, they rose up in protest.

For four days crowds of students and workmen clashed with police and paratroops in the streets of Kwangju. Soon the protesters, waving rifles, iron bars and stones, took control of the city. They occupied the city hall and provincial headquarters and burned down a TV-radio station owned by a chain that had supported the Park regime. Raiding police and military armories, they seized some 3,500 weapons, including light machine guns. They commandeered dozens of military vehicles. For the most part the army avoided an open fight with the rioters. Even so, hospitals confirmed that 107 people had been killed.

TIME Correspondent S. Chang managed to visit Kwangju last week and found the city gripped by a strange combination of euphoria and lawlessness. Reported Chang: "The city's youth reigned supreme. Tens of thousands were roaming around town, driving or boarding army trucks, Jeeps, buses, even bulldozers. Chanting hoarsely, the youths banged on the sides of their vehicles with sticks or metal pipes. In the turbulent heart of kwangju. I flagged down a jeep for a ride. It stopped but its seven occupants stared at me suspiciously. 'What the hell do you want?' said one. When I explained, they grinned and were more than willing to oblige. One was a 20-year-old lathe operator, another a candy store employee. The five others were friends from a neighborhood auto repair shop.

"One of my erstwhile hosts, the lathe operator, from time to time would playfully take aim at me with his M16. Another kept grabbing his hand grenade and explaining to me how the pin could be removed. I pleaded with them to discontinue their antics, since the driver, a speed maniac who for reasons best known to himself wore a gas mask, kept zooming at 40 m.p.h. through alleys full of shouting humanity. I felt like one of those G.I.s who rode through liberated Paris or Rome during World War II. Kwangju, after all, had been 'liberated' by its youth power.

"My ride ended at last at the top of Mudung, a mountain behind Kwangju. The leader of my group pointed to the panoramic view of the city below and said, 'Look. We all love this city.' Then he shook hands, raced back to his Jeep and sped away. Only on the outskirts of Kwangju did I see some army troops, part of an estimated 15,000 who had been ordered to surround the periphery of the city. The soldiers were holding M-16s and guarding an approach to a penitentiary. Some demonstrators were giving them candy.

"What started it all? The Martial Law Command blamed it on 'hooligans and impure elements,' a reference to Communists and their sympathizers. Kwangju is not without some Communists. In fact I saw a red flag atop at least one commandeered army truck, the first I have ever seen in a land where Communism is outlawed. But I saw no signs of provocateurs or organized hooliganism. What I did see was an impending danger: with the youthful protesters stockpiling weapons, and troops encircling the city, Kwangju could turn into a bloodbath."

In Seoul, meanwhile, an apprehensive calm prevailed. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Shin Hyon Hwack abruptly resigned, taking the blame for "failure to maintain domestic calm." It was succeeded by a new one headed by Park Choong Hoon, a retired major general and administrator credited with having been a force behind South Korea's economic development. On Tuesday the Martial Law Command announced that it had decided to close down the National Assembly indefinitely. Opposition members assembled on the grass in a kind of sit-down strike. All 43 of them offered their resignations to the floor leader. Grumbled one:

"Even under [President] Park, nothing like this ever happened." A sense of distrust and fear seemed to pervade the city. Said a longtime resident of Seoul: "If the North Koreans sent planes to strafe the city, people would think it was Chun Du Hwan attacking the dissidents." Remarked a Kyung Hee University professor: "This is a season of spite and spleen."

The latest political turmoil has compounded a growing concern over South Korea's economic future. The country's highflying prosperity has recently slowed down. Unemployment has risen to 5.6% and is expected to pass 7% by the end of the year. Inflation has reached almost 20%. Last month workers at the Sabuk coal mines, demanding a 40% pay hike, rioted for three days; a policeman was killed and scores on both sides were injured before the miners settled for a 20% increase. Three weeks ago, the Tongmyung Timber Co. of Pusan, South Korea's largest plywood maker, went bankrupt, leaving liabilities of $106 million. Some of its 3,000 employees demonstrated for their unpaid wages and skirmished with police. Says a Korean economist: "With more big bankruptcies like that one, much of our labor force could explode."

After the unrest spread to Kwangju last week, U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie declared at a press conference that he was "deeply concerned" that the South Korean government was moving away from "liberalizing policies." The problem, as his aides explained later, is that the U.S. has precious few bargaining chips with which to influence developments in South Korea. Obviously Washington cannot threaten to withdraw its 39,000 troops or threaten economic sanctions against Seoul, since such actions would only undermine a pro-Western country that the U.S. once fought dearly to protect.

Nor can the Carter Administration realistically hope to bolster the position of President Choi, since he has little power and indeed may be a virtual prisoner of the military in the presidential compound, the Blue House. To be sure, American and South Korean troops are joined in a combined command, and in theory this gives the U.S. some control over more than half of South Korea's 600,000-man armed forces. But such authority can amount to very little. General Chun himself flagrantly ignored a Korean-American agreement on prior consultation last December, when he ordered reserve units to help him arrest some 40 rival officers. More cooperatively, the Seoul government last week asked General John Wickham Jr., U.S. commander of the joint forces, to release some Korean units under his command for "crowd control and internal security." He obliged.

Late last week Kwangju remained under the effective control of its insurgents, but hastily organized "citizens' committees" were trying to reimpose some order at the grass roots. Teams of youths, for example, canvassed the streets to induce people to turn in their weapons; they succeeded in collecting more than half of those that had been seized. Community leaders, meanwhile, met with government officials and army commanders to try to negotiate a truce. Spokesmen for the townspeople lodged a series of specific demands: that the government keep its troops outside Kwangju until order is restored, that it compensate families of the dead and wounded and that it refrain from retaliating against the rioters. Initial negotiations did not produce a settlement, but at least the city was calmer than it had been for a week.

Ever since Chun seized power, among his goals were the execution of Kim Jae Kyu, the former intelligence chief who killed President Park, Chun's mentor, last Oct. 26; and the exclusion of Opposition Politician Kim Dae Jung from the election of a new President that was supposed to be held some time next year. Last week Chun made notable progress on both fronts. The South Korean Supreme Court rejected Kim Jae Kyu's appeal of his death sentence, and four days later he was hanged, along with four accomplices. In the meantime, martial law investigators announced that they had found evidence to back up their sedition charges against Kim Dae Jung, which conceivably could make him liable to the death penalty as well. Removing an opposition figure like Kim from the political scene might be a temptation for a military autocracy in the making. But it obviously would do nothing to relax the explosive tensions in Kwangju. As the past few weeks have shown once again, unruly events in South Korea have a frightening way of taking on a life of their own. At the height of the bloodshed and chaos in Kwangju last week, one university demonstrator shook his head with fear and disbelief. "This," he said, "is something we never intended."

Archive: June 9, 1980

Inspired by The Marmot, here is a Time Magazine archive article from June 1980 that describes what happened in Kwangju in 1980. 

Monday, Jun. 09, 1980

Ten Days That Shook Kwangju

Paratroopers put down a citizens' insurrection

As 6,000 people gathered for a peaceful rally in the main square of the provincial capital of Kwangju last week, two gleaming South Korean air force jets arced across the city, made several passes over the demonstrators, then disappeared. The reconnaissance flyover was the first signal that South Korea's military was preparing to break the rebel seizure of Kwangju. For nine days the city had been under the control of some 200 dissident students who had led a full-scale citizens' insurrection, seizing all government buildings and most police stations. For nine days, several thousand troops that had been withdrawn from the center of the city were poised at the outskirts. Other troops, including three crack paratrooper brigades, had been dispatched to encircle the city. On the tenth day this small army, totaling 17,000 men, finally moved into the troubled city.

At 3:30 a.m. Kwangju's 800,000 citizens were awakened by the screech of tank treads and the flutter of helicopters flying in assault formations over the city's roofs. Paratroopers armed with machine guns, stun grenades and handguns stormed rebel strongholds in the provincial government offices, the tourist hotel, the local radio station and the city park. The rebels fought back with carbines, pistols and M16 rifles they had seized from government arsenals. But the civilian youths were scarcely a match for the crack airborne troops. In less than two hours the soldiers had secured Kwangju. As the sun rose over the city, troopers fanned out into the streets to collar every youngster in sight as a suspected rebel. Hundreds of insurgents were arrested. Officially, 19 were killed in the fighting; according to townspeople, the toll may actually have exceeded 100.

Outside the sandbagged government office building, hundreds of women queued up to try to identify the bodies of 16 fallen rebels displayed in open coffins. The corpse of a Protestant minister, Moon Jun Choi, was also found in a small building where the rebels had deposited thousands of their weapons. Hospitals, meanwhile, were overcrowded with wounded; some had been shot in the legs because the paratroopers had been ordered to aim low and avoid killing if possible.

The army assault on Kwangju climaxed a wave of civil turmoil that has shaken the country more seriously than any other in the past two decades. The trouble began three weeks ago, when students in Seoul staged a series of demonstrations. The protests were directed against the martial law that has been in effect ever since the assassination of President Park Chung Hee last October, and against the failure of the weak government of interim President Choi Kyu Hah to produce democratic reforms. The military-backed regime—dominated by the country's emerging strongman, Lieut. General Chun Du Hwan, head of the Defense Security Command as well as acting chief of the Korean CIA—responded with a far-reaching crackdown. It closed all 212 universities, detained hundreds of student militants, and arrested leading political figures, notably Kim Dae Jung, a dissident leader and a popular native son of Kwangju's province. At that, the city rose up in revolt, and angry demonstrations took place in more than a dozen neighboring towns.

The government tried to pin the blame for the violence on Communists and other "impure elements" but, according to most accounts, the armed forces themselves encouraged the rioting by overreacting. Only a handful of the estimated 290 dead were soldiers. The rest were civilians, shot down by the military. Eyewitnesses told TIME Correspondent Edwin Reingold that soldiers had beaten and shot civilians indiscriminately. Said one American resident: "Anybody in the soldiers' way was beaten mercilessly. When they saw the injured lying in the street, the soldiers beat them again." The American saw paratroopers shoot and kill a mother and her five-year-old child. When he shouted in protest, "Why are you doing this?" a soldier yelled back, "This is Korea, not America." A policeman who had changed into civilian clothes and joined the rebellion explained, "We couldn't stand to watch our own people be slaughtered. We're against Communism, but we're also against dictatorship."

Following the recapture of Kwangju, government leaders called for national unity and "a healing of the tragic scars." The martial law command characterized the military assault as a benevolent move "to relieve the suffering of innocent citizens" in Kwangju. The government made a show of ordering generous relief payments to residents of Kwangju, including compensation to people whose homes or businesses were damaged in the fighting.

Hopes for democratic reform any time soon appeared to have dwindled in the wake of the Kwangju rebellion. Increasingly anxious about the stability of one of its most valued allies in the Pacific, the U.S. urged Seoul to take steps "toward the establishment of a broadly based civilian government." Instead the generals heading the country's martial-law regime announced the establishment of a powerful junta-like Special Committee for National Security Measures, consisting of eight civilians and 17 generals, notably Lieut. General Chun. The government claimed the junta was "not a decision-making or legislative organization but an advisory committee to the President, aimed at deliberating various state affairs relating to national security." Oldtimers in Seoul thought otherwise. Many likened it to the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction created by the late President Park Chung Hee to consolidate his own power after his 1961 military takeover.

South Korea launches working 3G+ HSDPA network (like I know what this means)

This is one of those stories that I offer as a public service for people who come here to keep up with Korea-related topics and issues even though I really have only the vaguest grasp of what it's saying. I mean, I know what the individual words mean, but the overall topic is beyond me.

I get that it means that here in the Republic of Korea this means even more advanced wireless networks and better data transmission, but beyond that, I'm at a loss. It's like when I have to read soccer-related stories about how this team or that team is likely to do well in the World Cup: my eyes glaze over even as my brain processes each individual word.

At any rate, judging from the first sentence, I gather this is something positive. If anyone would like to explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old (a four-year-old medical sociologist), feel free to run loose in the comments section.

South Korea has moved even further ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to mobile data transmission and wireless networks. While everyone else is still scrambling to get effective 3G networks in place, Korea has become the first country to have a working commercial 3G+ HSDPA (High Speed Data Packet Access) network. SK Telecom has rolled out the network in 25 cities across the country. They hope to sign up 300,000 subscribers to the new service by the end of the year.

HSDPA offers a maximum downlink speed of 14.4 Mbps, though it will not perform at that rate to begin with. The speed targets include 3.6Mbps in early 2007, 7.2Mbps by sometime later in 2007, and the full 14.4Mbps in 2008. SK Telecom has currently announced one phone, the Samsung W200, which will provide downlink speeds of 1.8Mbps. They will release four or five more HSDPA phones by the end of the year, starting with an LG offering in June.

Got it? Korea going to 3G+ HSDPA in twenty-five cities...300,000 subscribers by the end of the year...14.4 Mbps maxium, with that as a target by 2008...phones to be released soon...

Okay, my brain is full now. Time for Minesweeper on the PDA.

The consumer in me is going, "Wow, that's three sexy models." The medical sociologist in me is thinking, "Gee, she'd better have someone take a look at that mole." Preferably me.

If Ban wants to be UN Secretary-General, he'd better listen

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, visiting Tokyo, is telling Japan and Korea to stop acting like children over the Tokto/Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks issue.

Not quite in those words, but he did tell Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that Seoul and Tokyo need to improve their strained ties resulting from the spat over the islets in the East Sea/Sea of Japan.

Annan said he discussed with Koizumi "about Korea-Japan relationships and the need to reduce tensions and improve relations." He urged the two countries to hold talks to resolve their differences on the land issue, which nearly came close to turning nasty last month when Japan sent two survey ships to the disputed islets. From the article:

In some ways Mr. Annan, whose Asia trip may be his last as UN head, is approaching east Asia like a marriage counselor. He will meet all three heads of state (including China), has said the three nations are neighbors "bound to live together," and that a crucial need is to be "truthful to history" in order to avoid past crimes and mistakes.

Annan described the ties between Tokyo and Seoul as "important" not only for the region but for the whole world, and said he got the impression during his earlier visit to Seoul that the South Korean side has not closed doors for negotiation.

Right-wing activists need our consideration

Just so we're clear, this is satire, right?

The interview from hell.

And speaking of North-South summits...

Ha Byeong-ok [left] and So Man-sul [right], the respective leaders of the pro-Seoul and pro-Pyongyang Korean associations in Japan are meeting to patch up their decades-old feud.

In all fairness, we should say that most members of the "pro-Pyongyang" group are more accurately described as North-oriented, and it is so primarily because of the geographic location of these Japan-based members' families. Were they to not maintain such ties, they would have no conduit of support to relatives who may desperately need their financial help.

The two groups represent Koreans living in Japan, most of whom are descendants of those who came voluntarily or were forcibly brought to Japan during Tokyo's 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea. The pro-Seoul Korean Residents Union in Japan, known as Mindan, was founded in 1946. The pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon in Korean or Chōsen Sōren in Japanese, was established in 1955.

According to a joint statement:

Mindan and (Chongryon) ... agreed to switch their relationship, which for a long time had been based on animosity and conflict, to one of mutual understanding and harmony.

The two groups have a long history of deep ideological antagonism that reflects that of their respective orientations, but they have now agreed to cooperate to better the lives of Koreans in Japan and maintain their ethnic identity. This was made possible, in part, by greater cooperation between the two Korean governments, a reflection of former ROK President Kim Daejung's so-called "Sunshine Policy."

During the Cold War, Chongryon campaigned to portray the communist North as a "paradise on earth" and repatriate ethnic Koreans from Japan, a stance Mindan fiercely criticized. Today, some in Japan accuse the leadership of the pro-Pyongyang group of aiding in spying and perhaps even abducting Japanese citizens.

North Korea's Kim Jong-il admitted in 2004 to earlier abductions of Japanese nationals, which has contributed to Chongryon's has also had declining membership, but both groups are affected by a smaller and smaller membership base as tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans in Japan—a majority now third generation or even later—opt for Japanese citizenship and are now able to enjoy fuller assimilation as members of Japanese society.

Four days in June

North and South Korea agreed today that former South Korean President Kim Daejung will visit Pyongyang for four days in late June for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The agreement was reached in working-level talks in the North's Mt. Kumgangsan resot between former South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun and North Korea's Vice Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee, Ri Jonghyok.

This trip would be (until it happens, I'll speak conditionally) a repeat of the landmark summit between the two Kims in June 2000, which resulted in a string of national reconciliation and economic cooperation projects.

Of course, people like my then-89-year-old 먼할머니 thought that President Kim Daejung should be arrested for treason for that. Other less angry critics would point out that since then, very few of Pyongyang's promises have actually come to any fruition. Cross-DMZ railway service is still not open (though it might be for the Kim Daejung trip) and the Dear Leader himself has yet to pay a reciprocal visit, as he had promised.

Of course, that's not going to happen. Any inter-Korean summit is going to have to be in North Korea for the foreseeable future. Kim Jong-il would face massive protests if he were to come to the South. And who knows, maybe some of the pragmatic elite up in the DPRK would take the chance to have a bloodless coup.

To the shores of Tripoli

On Monday, the United States and longtime adversary Libya restore full diplomatic ties, as a reward for Tripoli scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programs

This development has been building since the Clinton Administration, and the Bush-43 Administration certainly hopes that Iran and North Korea will learn a lesson from it.

And, lo and behold, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Kimoon said the move signals incentives for Pyongyang if they do the same:

It is a good example of the brighter future that awaits when you give up the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction...We urge North Korea to understand there will be a brighter future when it gives up its nuclear programs and returns to the six-party talks at the earliest time. We also believe that relations between the United States and North Korea will improve for the better.

Nice to see someone in the Roh Administration on the same page—I think—with Washington on something like this.

Libya is hoping to get more investment in its energy sector, which it badly needs. As an interim step in improving ties, Washington lifted a broad trade embargo on Libya in 2004, and Tripoli will soon be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Of course, it's not entirely certain North Korea could go down the same path as Libya did. Pyongyang survives by fear and control, and the very things the Libya hopes to get from renewed ties could actually undermine the DPRK leadership's control were the same to be done up north.

Additionally, even if Pyongyang thought it could manage new investment while maintaining control, the benefits would likely be slow in coming. Re-esablishing diplomatic ties took over two years from the time Tripoli decided to give up its weapons program in December 2003.

No more Death Valley days?

Death Valley is a place close to my heart. I'll take time to fisk this Newport Beach News article later.

What's in a name?

A muncipality known as "America's Basement" hopes a name change will bring better luck and more tourists

By Cathleen Toguchi
Newport Beach News staff reporter



DEATH VALLEY, California—Residents in "America's lowest city" are hot under the collar, and it's not because of the 120-plus temperatures that bake this place even after the sun goes down.

The eighty-three permanent residents of the City of Death Valley are caught up in a heated debate over the local city council's efforts to change the name of their municipality and the park it's located in.

With the help of the National Park Service, the City of Death Valley is quietly pushing a resolution in both the US House and Senate that would permanently change the name of Death Valley.

The people behind the bill, including the mayor and most of the city council, are the residents of the only town located within the vast park, which includes the lowest point in the western hemisphere and the second hottest place on Earth.

Mayor Arthur Hirotsu (at left) explains the rationale. "Our reasoning is simple: the name 'death' is simply a turn-off to tourists. Who would want to visit a place called Death Valley? Rather than forever be tagged as the place where hundreds of wayward pioneers died seeking a shortcut to the California gold fields and a promise of a better tomorrow, we thought it would be much more positive to celebrate those who survived to tell about their adventure."

The council's proposed name? Valley of Life National Park.

Proponents hope the name change will mean other changes to the isolated high desert community.

Mayor Hirotsu explains this as he dips another French fry into the secret barbecue sauce at Lupe's Bar & Grill, a 1950s-era eatery that is the only dining establishment in town. It is now empty except for Hirotsu, Deputy Mayor Howard Saterdalen, and a tour group of Germans visiting from Frankfurt.

Saterdalen's eyes dart nervously toward the tourists as he makes a grab for some of the mayor's fries. "In about half an hour they're going to start singing German bar songs," he says. "Every damn busload of Krauts sounds like a bunch of Nazis when they get drunk. But God bless 'em, if it weren't for the Germans, Death Valley would have no tourism industry at all."

Indeed, statistics indicate that 89% of Death Valley's summer visitors arrive from Germany. Internal studies conducted by the California Department of Tourism in Sacramento indicate that a majority of them come on some sort of dare.

Sensing a very un-PC discussion about to erupt, I steer the topic back toward the proposed name change. Saterdalen whips out a beige cap emblazoned with COVOL in red.

"It stands for City of Valley of Life," he explains. "I think it's your size." I put it on, conscious that I am dangerously close to becoming part of my story.

Hirotsu is eager to lay out the name change rationale. The name is rooted, proponents say, in other facts. Death Valley, they say, is actually teeming with life. Says the Mayor: "There are desert tortoises, and even foxes that thrive in the 120-plus heat routinely found here in summer months. And by 'thrive' I mean they don't die."


The City of Death Valley's elusive mascot, "Foxy"

Despite the enthusiasm of the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor, and most of the other members of the City Council, there are naysayers, including Lupe's owner, Lupe Rodrigues.

Lupe walks toward our table, wiping her greasy left hand on her apron as she ominously holds up her spatula with her right, as if she is ready to slap down the Deputy Mayor.

"The name change is the dumbest idea these yahoos have come up with in a long time," she says, punctuating her shouting by swinging the spatula. "And that's no easy feat. We woulda voted in term limits here, but we realized we'd run out of people to hold office."

Lupe's main complaint is that she doesn't want to change her stationery. "Forty years ago," she explains, "my mother received a bunch of stationery from a traveling salesman who couldn't pay his tab, and we're only half way through the box."

Other critics say that council's arguments just don't hold water.

[picture of Fred Ionescu to go here]

Fred Ionescu, chairman of the Committee to Leave Our Town's Name the Hell Alone, or CLOTNHE, points out that the lack of visitors may indeed be due to Death Valley's inhospitable conditions. Simply put, it's very, very hot.

Ionescu rushed over to Lupe's as soon as he'd heard that "the media" (me) had arrived. "There's a reason these old fogies are all sitting inside in the air-conditioning," Ionescu says. "and it isn't the ambience or the greasy pie." Lupe demonstrates that the spatula indeed is a weapon as she whacks Ionescu in the back of the head.

"Look, this place is hot," Ionescu elabortes. "People die outside. And the sooner we embrace that, the better off we'll be."

Indeed, among the tourists the intense heat is the sole topic of conversation, which annoys Deputy Mayor Saterdalen even further. Though he can't string together a sentence in German, he is able to recognize at least ten different German words related to heat or temperature, simply because he's heard them over and over.

"All right, it's hot. So what? Is that all there is to this place?" he angrily says. "Every day, 'looks like a scorcher,' 'oh, yeah, gonna be hot today,' 'oh, look there's another load of tourists in a black car; they're goners for sure.'"

"For me, talking about the heat got old back in '63. Imagine if every day in L.A. there were a magnitude-7 earthquake...every day. That's all people would talk about. Imagine how fast the art of conversation would deteriorate then."

The few English-speaking tourists I encountered appeared to bolster Saterdalen's claims.

"There's no way to describe it," said tourist Goff Chung of Daly City about the heat, which is typically accompanied by scorching winds. "It's like someone is blowing a hair dryer in your face and won't turn it off." He and his family said they were just driving through on their way to Las Vegas.

His wife Stace chimed in: "We don't know if we should keep the baby as clothed as possible to protect her from the sun, or dress her as lightly as possible to keep her ventilated. It's a very confusing place."

They found the place "eerily beautiful," but said they would prefer to return around Thanksgiving, when temperatures usually dip below 110.

Jethro Wilkinson, president of Death Valley's chamber of commerce, thinks that name change or not, the city and park will have to do more to compete for scarce tourist dollars. On the top of his list of ideas to attract tourists revitalize the Valley's economy (and yes, it is an actual list, which he carries around in case inspiration strikes) is a casino. Second on his list: stop charging $7 a gallon for gasoline.


Death Valley Chamber of Commerce president Jethro Wilkinson

Wilkinson drags me and my photographer across the street to his convenience store, where a mock-up of a casino complex is wedged between the Doritos and the beef jerky. It's an impressive-looking model, the grandest use of sugar cubes and glue I have ever seen.

After we've had time to digest the model (figuratively), Wilkinson brings us back outside and points to some sand dunes behind his store. This is to be where "The Boraxo" Hotel and Casino Resort will go. Wilkinson even has a proposed slogan to go with the advertising campaign: "Clean family fun at The Boraxo."


Site of proposed casino complex in East Death Valley

But Wilkinson's enthusiasm for the idea is not matched by his certainty. He gives the likelihood of a casino 50-50 odds at best, and he is constantly plotting ways to get the idea accepted by Sacramento: "Mayor Hirotsu looks like he could be Injun. We're looking into ways to get him declared a tribe so we can launch legalized gambling." After a short reprimand by Ionescu on the importance of political correctness when talking to outsiders, Wilkinson adds, "we have tried to get some Native Americans to come here, but they won't touch this hellhole with a ten-foot teepee."

Deputy Mayor Saterdalen has finished his pie and come across the street to rejoin our discussion. When Wilkinson mentions Sacramento, Saterdalen is quick to point out that the governor speaks German.

Saterdalen is enthusiastic about the the casino proposal. "By shifting the focus to 'life' and maybe enticing people with gambling, we're hoping to attract people with a positive, uplifting image of our community. This will probably also mean fewer Germans."


Death Valley's claim to fame are its heat and its low elevation. Opponents of the name change say "it won't make one damned bit of difference" if names like Badwater are retained.



Blackpoll warbler



Attendees of the city council meeting take a break from name change discussions to signal the plane bringing weekly airdrops of food and magazines.




Death Valley residents discuss town name change while filling up



Death Valley's Shoshone Museum hosted its 100th visitor this year. The curators insists that fifty-six of those visits were not local residents coming in to use the restroom. 



Death Valley business district


Councilman Paul Grosserman


City Treasurer Doug "Possum" Williams

I don't think it's the just the temperature, he explains. Nearby Las Vegas is also blisteringly hot and it gets millions of tourists a year. I just think that if people play the slots, win thousands of dollars, the idea of then visiting Death Valley has no appeal.

Longtime resident and current mayor Arthur Hirotsu says the proposed name change also has something to do with a longtime rivalry with Antelope Valley. Local lore says that decades ago, the residents of Dead Antelope Valley packed the Death Valley City Council with people on its payroll. They then voted a city name change from Dead Adventurer Valley to Death Valley, solely so that Dead Antelope Valley would come first in California road atlases. Eventually, in a further effort to move up in the alphabetical rankings, they dropped the word "dead" altogether from their name.

"It's a horrible place full of teeth-missing yokels living out of rusty, old trailers. The only antelope in that Godsaken hell hole are road kill strapped on top of a camper truck.

By changing the name from such-and-such valley to valley of such-and-such, we're just removing ourselves from that whole silly game of oneupmanship.

A day spa and salt bath are also planned.

Superintendent of Schools Jeb Barlow expressed reservations about the proposed name change. "We fu--ing change our g--dam name to some bulls--t like 'Valley of Life' and next thing you fu--ing know, you've got g--dam fundamentalistas coming out your a--hole."


Superintendent of Schools Jeb Barlow

China clones its own Dr. Hwang-like scandal

Not to be outdone by South Korea and its scandal over geneticist-turned-charlatan Hwang Woo-suk, the people of China are convulsing in collective shock over some fake research that had held so much promise.

Dr. Chen Jin, the former head of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Microelectronics School, will face criminal charges for faking research into computer chips that were aimed at ending the PRC's reliance on foreign suppliers. His chips had been seen as a breakthrough for Chinese research.

According to reports, Dr. Chen used chips made by another firm to fool university and government inspectors. The chips were unable to carry out the functions, such as reading fingerprints or playing MP3 files, that they were supposed to, always a bad sign.

Xinhua New Agency says that Dr. Chen would now have to pay back state funding, an amount of around 114 million yuan (about £7.5 million—hey, it's a BBC article and I'm too damn lazy to go convert this).

According to the BBC, Dr. Chen's work on chips had been seen as a shining example of what could be possible when academia mixed with business. However, an investigation was launched after authorities received a letter questioning the validity of Dr. Chen's work.

That's an awful lot of money—I'm pretty sure it's in the millions of dollars—to bilk the PRC government out of, not to mention the incredible loss of face for the Communists and their long march toward self-reliance. Given that the People's Republic of China executes people for non-violent financial crimes, it's no small concern that we may end up saying Good-bye, Dr. Chips.

One Japanese man South Koreans should rally behind

Shigeru Yokota, the father of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese woman abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 when she was a teenager, has arrived in South Korea to meet with family members of Kim Young-nam, the South Korean 1978 kidnap victim believed to be her husband.

In addition to sharing a tragic story of a family torn apart by the evil done by North Korea's regime, Megumi's parents and Young-nam's mother also have a granddaughter in common.

Here's hoping that the press will again take the opportunity to focus on this horrific story and how past and present ROK administrations (of all political stripes) have done little or nothing about this issue.

UPDATE:
While in Seoul, Mr. Yokota has recorded a message to his daughter in the hope that she is still alive to hear it (the North Korean authorities who finally admitted the young Miss Yokota had been abducted also said she was dead).

The message was recorded at the Freedom North Korea Broadcast radio station in Seoul, a station run by North Korean defectors that beams programs into the North.

Mr. Yokota's message, along with those of his son Tetsuya and other abductees' relatives, will be broadcast into North Korea for three days starting Thursday.

In a solemn voice, Shigeru Yokota said: "All of the people in Japan are waiting for your return. I am looking forward to living with you again."

Mr. Yokota plans to visit not just Kim Young-nam's mother, but also each of three groups in South Korea that represent families of abductees, as well as Park Geun Hye, leader of the conservative opposition Hannara Party.

Canadian prime minister calls for troops along border

It's come to this.

Ottawa, CANADA—Citing rising numbers of American citizens crossing north into Canada for illicit activities, Canadian Prime Minister Steve Harper has decided to man the 3000-mile Canada-US border with Canadian military personnel.

"The frontier with Greenland has been pretty quiet lately," Harper told reporters, "so we figured they could use a break from the boredom."

Harper told a hastily assembled press conference that increasing numbers of US citizens have been crossing into Canada's provinces in order to break the law, mostly by buying subsidized pharmaceuticals and evading New York and New Jersey taxes with bulk purchases of cigarettes that are taken back over the border.

"This is illegal," an aide later explained. "When they come over the border and we ask them, 'Is your trip business or pleasure?' they should answer that they're planning to skirt American laws related to controlled substances. That is not 'pleasure.'"

Conservative members of Parliament have been pushing for stronger action as swelling numbers of US seniors have reportedly been pilphering pharmacies in border towns, leaving local residents unable to deal with joint inflammation, panic attacks, and lactose intolerance.

"They come by the busload," said Dr. Frederick LeBlanc, a pharmacist in southern Quebec. "Of course they pay and they're very polite, but did they ever think that we Canadians might also need our Cialis?"

Some Liberals joined the Conservatives out of concern for rising gun crime. "We haven't actually experienced an increase," said Liberal MP Ian MacNally of Moose Jaw. "But we've all seen 'Bowling for Columbine,' and it's just a matter of time, eh."

General Paul Lindsay of the Land Forces Command said the troops will be deployed just as soon as the unmarked portions of the border can be determined.

Harper later telephoned US President George W. Bush to assure him that the placement of the Canadian military on the border does not mean Canada is militarizing the Canada-US border.

"Oh, I understand, Steve-meister," Mr. Bush replied, according to official transcripts of the call released by Ottawa. "I told Vince the same thing about the National Guard. I told him, 'National Guard-o no es military-o.' Except when we send them to Iraq. Heh heh heh."

New Democrats are hoping to add a rider to Harper's proposal, which would require that the soldiers not actually carry weapons. But they will still be a potent force, says MP Fiona Murray-Kennedy of Medicine Hat. "They will have orders to be assertive on sight."