[Kim Seong-kon] We all are responsible for healing our country

The defeat of Donald Trump to Joseph Biden in the last US presidential election brought celebration and relief for half of the American people, but frustration and fury for the other half. At that time, America was sharply divided by two groups that were constantly blaming each other. For example, the Democrats blamed Trump for the division of America, but the Republicans asserted that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were responsible. Perhaps both sides had a point. During the Clinton era, campa

ViewpointsAug. 3, 2022

[Andrew Sheng] Is the falling yen a cause for concern?

It never rains but it pours. Every day this summer we are bombarded by bad news -- raging forest fires, the continuing Ukraine war, random shootings in different cities, a mutating omicron, monkeypox and rising debt distress all over. The good news for some is that the United States dollar is stronger than ever. Or is that bad news for others? In the Bali G-20 Financial Ministers and Central Bank meeting held last week, there was concern that currency volatility could trigger more instability

ViewpointsAug. 2, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] K-pop and learning Korean

During my recent visit to South Korea, people often asked me about the popularity of K-pop overseas. Answering the question was always a bit of challenge because I’m not a fan of K-pop and don’t follow it closely. I have a sense of its popularity in the US and, to a lesser extent, Japan, but don’t know much about the rest of the world. I start the answer with these limitations, partly in the hope that the conversation will soon move in another direction, which is usually does.

ViewpointsJuly 29, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?

Watching the Jan. 6 committee hearings, one could be forgiven for believing we’re living in the heyday of conspiracy theories, between the Holocaust denialism of the Oath Keepers, the loony pedophilia fears of the QAnoners and the “Stop the Steal” ravings of Sidney Powell, Rudolph W. Giuliani and former President Donald Trump himself. But don’t be too sure. Conspiracy theories have a long history. They date back to the Emperor Nero and the great fire of Rome, for instanc

ViewpointsJuly 28, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] New power needs to depart from past episodes

  In the 2 1/2 months since the inauguration of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in Seoul, relations between the former and present ruling powers of South Korea have turned from bad to worse, despite the new president’s assurance of “mutual cooperation.” The National Assembly plenary and committee sessions, social media postings and YouTube interviews produce extreme words of criticism from the opposing ranks concerning most government policy announcements, while the new

ViewpointsJuly 28, 2022

[Doyle McManus] Congress is moving toward fixing the way it counts votes for president, but it won‘t be easy

Last week, a bipartisan group of 16 US senators agreed on a long-awaited proposal to fix the Electoral Count Act, the ramshackle 1887 law that then-President Donald Trump used to try to overturn the 2020 election. Trump claimed the law, which sets the rules under which Congress counts electoral votes, allowed then-Vice President Mike Pence to block votes from states that Joe Biden won. Pence refused, which is why the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, chanted “Hang Mike Pence.&

ViewpointsJuly 27, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] We all are a bowl of something

Every day, we use bowls. We fill bowls with something and then empty them later. A bowl‘s identity varies, depending on what it contains. For example, if there is nothing in it, it becomes an empty bowl. If it contains jewelry, it is a jewelry bowl. If it has junk food in it, we call it a junk food bowl. Bowls come in different sizes. There are big bowls and small bowls. When we Koreans say, “He is a big bowl,” it means he is magnanimous and has the capacity of a great man. W

ViewpointsJuly 27, 2022

[John Ghazvinian] The Iran nuclear deal is dead. Here’s why it would benefit Biden to admit it

It is now clear that the talks aimed at reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal -- are going nowhere. After eight rounds of indirect talks, the Biden administration and the government of Iran’s hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, have failed to reinstate the deal that the Trump administration renounced in 2018. Iran refuses to return to the Iran nuclear deal unless it receives an ironclad guarantee that it won’t be repealed aga

ViewpointsJuly 26, 2022

[Eboo Patel] Our world needs social change agents. Here’s how to be an effective activist

In my early years as an activist, I thought social change was about calling out all the ways that people in power were wrecking the world. Finding my voice meant telling other people what they were doing wrong, as loudly and self-righteously as possible. I came of age in the mid-1990s, an era where the activist atmosphere had profound similarities to today. I recognize the “tear it down” energy of our moment, the critique-resist-defund-dismantle worldview. I brought my own version

ViewpointsJuly 26, 2022

[Mariana Mazzucato, Jayati Ghosh] An effective pandemic response must be truly global

At their recent meeting in Bali on July 15-16, G20 finance ministers reaffirmed their commitment to coordinated action to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control and better prepare for the next global health emergency. A central topic was the creation of a new financial intermediary fund (FIF) to address pandemic preparedness and response (PPR), under the trusteeship of the World Bank and with the World Health Organization playing a central technical and coordinating role. The goal is to clos

ViewpointsJuly 25, 2022

[Jonathan Zimmerman] Baseball, vaccines and the triumph of selfishness

In April 1909, New York Highlanders‘ first baseman Hal Chase was hospitalized with smallpox near the team’s spring training site in Georgia. The rest of the squad -- which would be renamed the Yankees in 1913 -- took an overnight train to Richmond, Virginia, where they were scheduled to play an exhibition game against a minor league team before the regular season started. But first, the players would need to undergo medical examinations to make sure they were not infected with the d

ViewpointsJuly 22, 2022