Looking ahead to the Olympics this month, Adam Gopnik cleverly writes in The New Yorker that “Americans become passionate about athletes we have never heard of participating in games we do not follow trying to please judges we cannot see according to rules we do not know.”Gopnik sees this fascination bred by nationalism. But within American culture, we should also be attuned to the narratives of individual excellence that dominate coverage of the Olympics. These narratives extol the virtue of si

July 17, 2012

Once, during a meeting at my university, a biologist mentioned that he was the only faculty member present from a science department. When I corrected him, noting that I was from the Department of Psychology, he waved his hand dismissively, as if I were a Little Leaguer telling a member of the New York Yankees that I too played baseball.There has long been snobbery in the sciences, with the “hard” ones (physics, chemistry, biology) considering themselves to be more legitimate than the “soft” one

July 17, 2012

On July 20, the Korea Institute for National Unification and the Korean Political Science Association will hold a joint forum Korean Unification from an International Perspective. The forum is unique in being one of the few efforts to draw in perspectives on Korean unification beyond the participants of the long stalled six-party talks. It may seem logical that the participants in the six-party talks take center stage in any forum on the Korean Peninsula. China, Japan, Russia, and the United Sta

July 17, 2012

Until recently, respectable opinion frowned on all barriers to money flowing across borders. Today, the old thinking has been overturned. Sometimes, it’s agreed, capital controls are necessary. The old consensus was wrong and won’t be missed. The new view, however, lacks clarity and, when it comes to application, effective oversight. Capital controls may sometimes be necessary ― but they are always dangerous and open to abuse. These policies need to be better considered and more carefully superv

July 16, 2012

If you have been reading newspapers or websites, listening to the radio or watching TV over the past few weeks, you have probably heard the news: “You CAN judge a person by his shoes.” Beginning in mid-June, word of a psychology article titled “Shoes as a source of first impressions” began circling the globe. Describing an experiment by researchers from the University of Kansas and Wellesley College, many reports declared that shoes alone reveal just everything about the wearer’s personality. “O

July 16, 2012

The relationship between Tokyo and Seoul is in the news again ― and for all the wrong reasons. Last week, in an apparent sign of bilateral warming, a report from Korea’s Yonhap News Agency indicated that Japan and Korea were on the cusp of formalizing a longstanding commitment to share intelligence and security information on North Korea’s WMD programs. The story claimed that government sources in Seoul were prepared to sign off on a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) wi

July 16, 2012

The Yeosu Expo opened almost two months ago. The number of visitors so far is 2.8 million, or 52,000 per day on average. The turnout is much lower than hoped. It falls far short of the 8 million targeted by the Yeosu Expo Organizing Committee.The committee is doubling efforts to attract visitors during the one month left before the finale. It says visitors will enjoy more diverse and interesting programs during this period. For example, the Expo Pop Festival takes place at 8 o’clock every night,

July 15, 2012

North Korea’s brushes with Disney tend to be less than magical. The Kim Dynasty’s first foray to the place where dreams come true ended in a nightmare. In 2001, the brother of leader Kim Jong-un tried to enter Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland. His Dominican Republic passport and lack of Spanish skills piqued the interest of customs officers, and was an endless source of embarrassment for their Dear Leader father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December. Eleven years after his brother’s attempted visit

July 15, 2012

Testifying before a Senate committee a few months ago, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented that America was “in an information war, and we are losing that war.” This week, she blew a fuse at the “Friends of Syria” meeting in Paris, saying that Russia and China should “pay a price” for not supporting regime change in Syria.Here’s a thought: How about using the power of truth to get things done rather than cover and manipulation?Russia and China aren’t following America’s script for o

July 13, 2012

Small and midsize companies account for 90 percent of domestic enterprises, and are a huge potential source of technological and human capital. We hope they will play a significant role in kick-starting the economy.A panel of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry formed to investigate the future of small and midsize businesses recently announced its proposals for revitalizing this sector. The panel’s report compiled the views of workers at small and midsize companies including managers, femal

July 13, 2012

Bolstering public trust in banks is once again on the agenda following the Libor inter-bank rates scandal now spreading in the Western banking industry. When will banks that are too big to fail ever learn?A prime banking failure from the drying up of credit, after balance sheets were gutted on reckless bets, was exposed as a result of the derivatives fiasco of 2008. Companies were left stranded. Joblessness rose, asset values fell. Trust in banks hit the depths. It raised this poser: Of what use

July 13, 2012

Health care reforms put forward by U.S. President Barack Obama have passed constitutional scrutiny. In an anxiously awaited, bitterly divided 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the week before last that the bulk of the bill, put into law in 2010, can go into effect.The decision upholds the most important piece of social legislation put forward in the United States for decades, but in a sad commentary on the static perspective of many Americans, the overwhelming majority of the commentaries

July 13, 2012