The Korea Herald

[Kim Seong-kon] Beautiful custom, vulgar society

Granted we now live in the age of radical social change, but we should keep the beautiful custom of respecting older people.When planning the agenda for the Seoul International Forum for Literature last May, the organizing committee encountered one minor problem: Who should have the honor of proposing a toast at the welcome reception among the 14 distinguished international guests? A committee mem

July 12, 2011

[Kim Seong-kon] Beautiful custom, vulgar society

[Michael Smerconish] An overture of candidates’ theme songs

Why is there always such poor advance work when it comes to presidential candidates and theme songs?Every four years, it seems, someone uses a song without getting the necessary clearance. You’d think politicians would learn from their predecessors’ mistakes.Three decades ago, Bruce Springsteen didn’t want Ronald Reagan using “Born in the U.S.A.” And two weeks ago, Tom Petty told Michele Bachmann

July 11, 2011

[David Ignatius] Ready to be a company man

The challenge for an intelligence chief is to develop sufficient intellectual distance from military plans and policy papers so that he can give the president independent assessments. WASHINGTON ― What sort of agenda will David Petraeus pursue as director of the CIA, after he leaves Afghanistan later this month? He laid out a basic road map in his June 23 confirmation hearing. After spending a wee

July 11, 2011

[David Ignatius] Ready to be a company man

[John Kass] Sickening story sure to provide ‘Bella Vita’

Just when you think Casey Anthony can’t possibly nauseate you anymore than she has already, try this:She wants more children.“I had a dream not too long ago that I was pregnant,” she wrote in a letter to another prison inmate a few years ago.“It was like having Cays all over again,” Anthony continued, referring to her little girl, Caylee. “I’ve thought about adopting, which even sounds weird to me

July 11, 2011

[Thomas Klassen] A decade of Seoul

For nearly a decade I’ve been visiting Seoul regularly. Each time I arrive, Seoul is a new city. My current trip finds the city more relaxed than ever. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, there is more time in Seoul. More time for its inhabitants to frequent the ever growing number of cafes. More time for complaining about how bad things are, like the economy and the weather, when they are not.The s

July 11, 2011

[Trudy Rubin] With Iran poised to move, should U.S. be leaving Iraq?

Does anyone remember Iraq?As the United States moves toward withdrawing its last 46,000 troops from that country by the end of 2011, Iraq has become a black hole. It is the place Americans want to forget and the media hardly cover.No wonder. Although violence is way down since the mid-2000s, there’s been a resurgence of car bombs and sectarian killings. The Iraqi government barely functions, and t

July 11, 2011

[Thitinan Pongsudhirak] Poll result heralds a Thai spring?

BANGKOK ― The thunderous results of Thailand’s general election on July 3 will seem familiar to anyone attuned to the political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa. Entrenched incumbent regimes everywhere are under severe stress from advances in information technology, shifts in demographics, rising expectations, and the obsolescence of Cold War exigencies. In the absence of a willingness

July 11, 2011

[Thitinan Pongsudhirak] Poll result heralds a Thai spring?

[Max Boot] U.S. foreign policy: In praise of nation-building

The signature line of President Obama’s June 22 Afghanistan address was “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.” This no doubt resonates among an electorate sick of foreign wars and eager to focus on domestic problems, but it is a wrongheaded statement.Whenever America has eschewed commitments abroad and turned inward, the results have been disastrous. The most isolationist

July 10, 2011

[Ramesh Ponnuru ] Ponnuru: High court should be pro-business

The idea that the Supreme Court is too pro-business is rapidly becoming the central liberal critique of the institution. During last year’s confirmation hearings for Justice Elena Kagan, Democrats made their theme the need to counter pro-business activism by the conservatives on the court. After the court ended its latest term last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, a Vermont Dem

July 10, 2011

[Rick Wartzman] Texas, the jobs engine

For the last few weeks, I’ve been unable to get a startling statistic out of my head: Since the recession officially ended, Texas has created more than four of every 10 new jobs in America.That’s right, Texas: the reddest of red states, home to gun lovers and school textbooks that openly question whether the Founding Fathers intended for the separation of church and state. I am no ideologue. Still

July 10, 2011

[Rachel Marsden] Difference between truth and justice

A judge has lifted former International Monetary Fund Seducer-in-Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s house arrest, releasing him on his own recognizance while retaining his passport until the end of proceedings. While the charges against Strauss-Kahn for allegedly sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid in May still stand, it remains to be seen how long that will be the case.The shift came when the M

July 10, 2011

[Rachel Marsden] Difference between truth and justice

[Joyce Appleby] Warring ambitions

James Madison would have smiled had he heard about President Obama’s maneuver, seemingly in defiance of the War Powers Act, to avoid asking Congress to authorize military action in Libya.The act, passed in 1973, came at a time when the Vietnam War had been under way for years without any president asking for congressional approval. Members of Congress wanted future presidents to be obliged to come

July 10, 2011

[Trudy Rubin] Not to forget our legacy of compromise

Since moving to Philadelphia, I’ve often visited the room in Independence Hall where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.As July Fourth approached, I felt a special need to return there to pay tribute to the qualities that enabled those men to establish a democratic system. I refer to their ability to compromise and show tolerance for the opinions of ot

July 8, 2011

[Shlomo Ben Ami] Arab Spring highlights Western fall

TEL AVIV ― The old vocation of what Rudyard Kipling called the “White Man’s Burden” ― the driving idea behind the West’s quest for global hegemony from the days of imperial expansion in the nineteenth century to the current, pathetically inconclusive, Libyan intervention ― has clearly run out of steam. Politically and economically exhausted, and attentive to electorates clamoring for a shift of pr

July 8, 2011

[Shlomo Ben Ami] Arab Spring highlights Western fall

[Editorial] Will budget airlines help economy take off?

The growing number of low-cost carriers in Asia in recent years is putting pressure on Japan to reform its commercial aviation system.Two South Korean LCCs have expanded their routes to include service to and from Japan this year, following similar moves by Chinese and Malaysian low-fare airlines last year. Another South Korean LCC is set to start service to Japan in mid-July. Clearly, Asian LCC o

July 8, 2011

[Editorial] Thaksin wins again

Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai party have won Thailand’s parliamentary elections, claiming a commanding majority in the legislature. The results are a vindication of sorts for Shinawatra’s brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, deposed in 2006 by a military coup.We say “of sorts” because Thaksin has been vindicated before: Since the coup, Thai politics have been marked by the co

July 8, 2011

[Coomi Kapoor] Rote learning explains lack of great achievers in India

In short, in spite of India’s universities churning out some two million graduates every year, there has been no Bill Gates, no Steve Jobs and no Nobel laureate among them in a long, long time.In spite of India’s universities churning out some two million graduates every year, there has been no Bill Gates or a Nobel laureate among them in a long time. The education system that rewards rote learnin

July 8, 2011

[Coomi Kapoor] Rote learning explains lack of great achievers in India

[William Pesek] Billionaire’s return may put riot police to work

All dressed up in riot gear and nowhere to go. Such was the plight of two dozen Thai police officers stewing in boredom Sunday night near one of Bangkok’s busier nightlife districts. Thai elections tend to be anarchic affairs for the keepers of order, with protests often deteriorating into violence. This time was different; tear gas canisters sat unused after the victory of allies of Thaksin Shina

July 7, 2011

[William Pesek] Billionaire’s return may put riot police to work

[Hans-Werner Sinn] GIPS debt: Farewell to the euro?

MUNICH ― “It’s not the euro that’s in danger, but the public finances of individual European countries.” One hears this everywhere nowadays, but it’s not true. The euro itself is at risk, because the countries in crisis have, in recent years, been running the eurozone’s monetary printing presses overtime.Some 90 percent of the refinancing debt that the commercial banks of the GIPS countries (Greec

July 7, 2011

[Hans-Werner Sinn] GIPS debt: Farewell to the euro?

[Lucian Leape and Helen Haskell] Limiting resident physicians’ work hours

Forty years ago this month, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that sleep-deprived resident physicians reading electrocardiograms made twice as many errors as their rested counterparts. Back then, in 1971, there were no limits on the hours that medical residents could be scheduled to work. Thirty-six-hour on-call shifts were the norm.Under new rules that take effect

July 7, 2011