Can you safely talk on a cellphone ― or for that matter, check your email or scroll through Google Maps ― while driving? Well, of course you can. But those other folks with their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road are a public menace.Unfortunately, that sums up the attitude of many American motorists, who widely acknowledge using their phones while behind the wheel but insist they’re safe drivers. Meanwhile, the number of people worried about the other guy is soaring. When the state

Viewpoints Dec. 13, 2011

Imagine walking down the street and on the other side of the road stands young women in provocative clothing holding up signs saying “I’m a slut.” What do you think would be the first thing that comes to your mind? This kind of movement is spreading all over the world, starting in Toronto. It first took place on April 3 when one police officer suggested that, in order not to be victimized, women “should avoid dressing like sluts.” Then what does this have to do with young women on the roads shou

Viewpoints Dec. 13, 2011

President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that he will seek to create what may be the world’s largest trading bloc along the Pacific rim raises an interesting question in this part of the world: whether we will see a de facto split of Latin America into a Pacific bloc and an Atlantic bloc.It may be already happening. Obama’s recent proclamation that “the United States is a Pacific country” and his announcement that Washington will seek to dramatically expand the nine-member Trans-Pacific Part

Viewpoints Dec. 13, 2011

The Durban climate-change talks ended in what negotiators agreed to call a success. Governments, including China and India for the first time, said they would devise a new global system for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and make it operational by 2020. This promise, however, has uncertain legal force, the form of any new regime is unclear, and the meeting failed to set any new binding targets. Don’t be too disappointed. The ambition to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a similar but truly

Viewpoints Dec. 12, 2011

Rep. Lee Sang-deuk announced Sunday he would not run for the 19th National Assembly election next April. His retirement, we believe, was four years too late. He had been advised by people in and outside the Grand National Party to make an exit from politics when his younger brother Lee Myung-bak was elected president in December 2007. But “SD” decided to seek his sixth term ― and won it ― “to play the role of the bridge” between the new ruling party and the president, who lacked firm roots in th

Editorial Dec. 12, 2011

We are increasingly uneasy that judges are making the news, not only with their verdicts but with their Twitter messages, and even with a collective appeal to the Supreme Court concerning the desirability of an international pact ratified by the Assembly and signed into law by the president.Judge Kim Ha-neul at the Incheon District Court has sent a letter of suggestion to Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae, asking him to form a task force for a court-level study of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement

Editorial Dec. 12, 2011

In November 1947, shortly after the United Nations voted for partition of the Holy Land into separate Arab and Jewish states, Chaim Weizmann was cited by the New York Times as saying that “the most important work now was to build Palestine.” What? To build Palestine? Yes, in 1947 the word “Palestinian” ― if it meant anything at all ― referred to Jews living in Palestine. The Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) was the Jewish English-language newspaper. The Palestine Orchestra (now the Israel

Viewpoints Dec. 12, 2011

Having already succeeded in giving free school lunches to all the needy (and unneedy) elementary students in Seoul, it seems newly minted Mayor Park Won-soon has now gone in on the next big populist policy, one even more unnecessary and potentially negative than school food, half-price tuition.Park has approved a budget which includes cutting tuition at the city-administered University of Seoul, likely the top public university in the Korean system dominated by private schools in rankings, from

Viewpoints Dec. 12, 2011

India has a Wal-Mart problem. This may not sound remarkable, considering that China and the U.S. do as well. China’s preference for sweatshops to supply the Arkansas-based behemoth impedes the creation of a vibrant domestic market. America’s addiction to cheap goods made in China helped kill a once-prosperous manufacturing sector. India’s challenge in allowing Wal-Mart to enter its market is more complicated. It’s a question of whether the ninth-biggest economy moves forward or backward and a de

Viewpoints Dec. 8, 2011

The ruling Grand National Party is teetering on the brink of collapse. On Wednesday, three of the party’s five top leaders quit their posts, calling for reform of the party. The majority party has been floundering in defeatism after losing the Seoul mayoral by-election on Oct. 26. The collective resignations of the three leaders ― Reps. Yoo Seung-min, Nam Kyung-pil and Won Hee-ryong ― were intended to pressure party leader Hong Joon-pyo to step down. What motivated the trio to drag Hong down was

Editorial Dec. 8, 2011

The government has again come up with a package of measures aimed at stimulating the dormant housing market. It is the sixth of its kind introduced this year. The frequent announcements of policy steps illustrate the difficulty of the task facing policymakers ― injecting new life into the moribund housing market without letting the genie of real estate speculation out of the bottle.The latest package, announced by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs on Wednesday, contained bolde

Editorial Dec. 8, 2011

A new study of pediatricians’ prescribing habits told us something old and something new. It told us that antibiotics are overused. It also told us ― and this is the new part ― that doctors are using the wrong antibiotics, even when the bacteria-killing drugs are called for. According to the study, which looked at tens of thousands of visits to pediatricians outside hospitals from 2006 to 2008, in more than one in five cases doctors gave their young patients antibiotics. Very often (23 percent o

Viewpoints Dec. 8, 2011