Rep. Chung Dong-young, an executive member of the opposition Democratic Party, raised the issue of co-hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics with North Korea and DP Chair Sohn Hak-kyu endorsed it in a top-level meeting Monday at Alpensia Resort, which will be the main venue of the Games seven years later. “We should consider it seriously and earnestly,” he said. The party’s rank-and-file loyalists appar

Editorial July 12, 2011

As Korean movies, TV dramas and music and dance shows gain popularity worldwide, there are calls for greater government support to accelerate their dissemination, preferably through the work of overseas Korean cultural missions. We believe there are better ideas.It is true that popular entertainment products contribute a lot to a country’s overall profile and their so-called brand power. Koreans,

Editorial July 12, 2011

“We’re a disaster area,” Alexis Bonogofsky told me, “and it’s going to take a long time to get over it.”Bonogofsky and her partner, Mike Scott, are all over the news this week, telling the world about how Montana’s Exxon Mobil pipeline spill has fouled their goat ranch and is threatening the health of their animals.But my conversation with Bonogofsky was four full days before the pipeline began po

Viewpoints July 12, 2011

Somewhere along the way, the American viewing public mistook the Casey Anthony trial for an episode of “American Idol.” If the audience had been allowed to vote, she’d be on her way to Florida’s death row.Instead, she’ll be released within days, acquitted of first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter. She’ll be free to sell her story, have another baby, go on breathing ― all to the loud dismay

Viewpoints July 12, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 11, 2011

Companies buy luxury cars for a variety of business purposes. Keeping fleets of expensive cars might demonstrate business strength and add to corporate creditability. Nothing wrong if company owners, their spouses and children holding executive positions drive these corporate cars for commuting or on local tours with domestic or foreign clients.It is a totally different matter, however, if the son

Editorial July 11, 2011

Even at the height of celebrations over winning the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in the city of PyeongChang, South Koreans have a shadow of anxiety as to how North Koreans might be reacting to it. This is because the past decades history of inter-Korean relations over the includes some extremely serious incidents which analysts linked to the North’s attempt to disrupt major sports f

Editorial July 11, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 11, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 11, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 10, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 10, 2011

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

Viewpoints July 10, 2011