The one about prophecy.

One thing I am very grateful for living outside the asylum of America is that I don't have ready access to the Fox network.  What I see of Fox Noise is my own choice online, not what happens to pop up in my living room uninvited on the TV.  Recently, they have been harping that christian privilege is disappearing.  They don't like it, and even liberal christians whinge and moan about people not giving religious faith its "due respect".   Even here, without television, I am aware beyond my need to know of the so-called war Fox is waging to force the rest of us to acknowledge the insanity of religion as an integral element of our society.  Religious belief is widespread, yes, and it is popular, too, but constitutive?  No, it is not.  One of the creators on YouTube I subscribe to made a video recently about this subject, and at one point in his exasperation over christians crying for more favoritism from the State says,

"Like you need the government to give a thumbs up to your faith!"

That pretty much sums up what today's evangelicals and fundamentalists are up to.  They want the stamp and seal of approval from the State.  It's in perfect line with their triumphalist philosophy, but it's not in line with the needs of American society.  Christians are not the only religious group in the country.  However, christians demand the State acknowledge just one religion, and let's face it, only the conservative part of that one religion.  According to their religious faith, conservative christians are the only people chosen by god for salvation, and that, dare I say it?  Yes, that is the permission slip that allows them arrogance beyond the pale.  When a group of people believe with every molecule of their being that they are chosen by god, they are the only true children of god, that they alone are going to rule the new heaven and the new earth after their savior returns, and that their prophecies of the future are the only true prophecies, yes, that makes for hubris unmeasured and a danger to the rest of us lowly scum.

What about those prophecies?  When prophesies are not being fulfilled at the rate expected, why not help them along a little?  Why not sow discord in the Middle East where your prophesies say discord will result in the final showdown of god and satan and the triumph of your faith over unbelievers?  Why not reject arms treaties with Russia when your prophesies say Russia must be one of satan's pawns at the end times?  Prophecies have to come true or those who spouted them and those who believed them are wrong at best, malicious at worst.  The early christians said Jesus promised to return before the first generation of christians all died, and he did not.  From the very beginning, the christian religion has been proven a false religion by its own standards (Deuteronomy 18.22).

How many other prophecies are wrong?  Of course, I believe they are all wrong.  You cannot predict the future; you can only create it, a heart-stopping thought when religious nuts are in charge of armies and bombs.  But for the sake of argument, what if just one of the major christian prophecies is wrong and they are in charge of the State trying to force the prophecy to come true?  Think of the disaster that will follow in the wake.  The reason our founding fathers drew that heavy line between religion and government is to preserve the integrity of both.  If the State interferes with religion, you get the Spanish Inquisition.  If religion interferes with the State, you get the English Civil Wars.  Someday, I hope all people will recognize that religion has nothing to offer the world.  It's a relic of human existence that had its time and place but now is less than unnecessary.  Until then, it is best to keep religion and government within their particular and separate realms for the safety of us all.


YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/freethinker3161

A Letter to Korea

Years ago, after helping to liberate Korea from the cruelty of Japanese oppression, our nation's fathers, brothers, uncles, and nephews came to your country once again in response to your great need.  I met some of those who survived and returned to tell the story of the Korean War.  The North Koreans, egged on and fueled by the megalomaniac Josef Stalin, invaded the South in a sweeping, all-encompassing attempt to subjugate it to the whims of one-party dictatorship based on a twisted interpretation of socialism that bore no resemblance to the ideals preached by the propagandists of Sovietism.

33,700 Americans died on the battlefields of Korea.  2,700 died while POWs.  The fruits of the ground have borne the vital energy of Americans who died to keep Korea free and sovereign.  The strength of Korean bodies and souls have come from the sacrifices of my countrymen as well as their own and those of other nations who stood by our side.  And it wasn't all that long ago, though young people will not think so.  Youth has no sense of time, really.  There are still about 4 million veterans of the Korean War still living.  Korea rebuilt after the war with generous grants and loans with no or minimal interest.  By the mid-1980's, Korea was a prosperous partner with the United States enjoying the benefits of equitable trade.  You still find older Koreans who know what America did for their country in their darkest days of need.  Yes, there was politics involved; you can't ignore it.  But at the heart was America's desire for a strong and independent Korea.  A stable partner is more advantageous to all.

Times change, however.  Empires and superpowers crack and weaken.  Many of us from America have come to our nation's friend asking for help in these tough times.  When jobs were scarce at home, Korea offered us what they had, and we have been grateful for the income and benefits.  In America, only the rich or well-employed can see a doctor, but Korea has been kind to us economic refugees.  We have no fear here that a doctor's visit will deplete our savings.  Medical care is considered a social necessity and is affordable, the burden borne by all for all, a nation united for the common good.

There has not been a street or alley I have feared to traverse by day or night.  The Korean people, though sometimes hard to fathom, are kinder to us than most of us deserve, at least more than I deserve.  They usually forgive us our social clumsiness and our outbursts of frustration with an understanding of human nature that reaches beyond culture and language.  I am certain that even without the debt of our ancestral sacrifice for their country, the Korean people would still kindly offer us jobs and benefits as much as they could reasonably bear.

This is my letter to the Korean people saying "Thank you" for helping us who have washed up on your shores.  Thank you for taking us in while our homeland suffered economic chaos at the hands of unscrupulous politicians, corporate greed, and Wall Street incompetence.  Maybe a minority, but I, for one, am grateful.

            

The one about the Golden Rule

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Anyone who is even moderately educated knows that this “Golden Rule” is very, very old. It goes back so far, nobody knows who said it first. The christ cults of earlier centuries put it into the mouth of the Jesus character of the gospels, but it predates the christ mythology by several millennia. This does not mean, however, that the saying is of no value. Its sheer age from time unknown attests to its worth. Almost all religions have had or have some version of it. There is something about it that inspires human beings to a nobler life that takes into consideration the effects of their behavior on others.

What troubles me most about my own life is that I am inconsistent in practicing this virtue, and this fact is pointed out to me fairly regularly, for which I am both embarrassed and grateful. But why has Mankind created and passed on this saying for so many, many centuries if it is so easily flouted? The answer speaks volumes to the basic goodness of human nature: We recognize it as the highest possible good. Christianism is wrong when it starts from the premise that human beings are evil by nature. Anyone's experience will show that people actually lean toward kindness and compassion, all things being equal. Of course, not all things are equal. The rich are rarely arrested as thieves. Those from peaceful upbringings hardly ever go on killing sprees. The attractive seldom want for romantic satisfaction.

Life is not guided by a benevolent creator, that seems clear. If there is a creator, I'd say the extent of its concern rests solely in allowing life to exist at all. It certainly seems unconcerned with the quality of that life. However, human beings are concerned with the quality of life. We can improve life or diminish it by sheer will. And we recognize that we can improve our quality of life more when we work in consideration of others. We know that we reap what we sow. Bad behavior often brings bad behavior back on us. Good behavior usually produces good behavior toward us. And yet, it's hard to say that our human compassion is merely for the selfish desire to get back what we give. Look at your life. Aren't you kind when there is sometimes little expectation of kindness in return? Don't you sacrifice a little more than you can spare of time, money, resources? It isn't a social experiment; it's a time-tested truism about human life.

At this time of year, it's not uncommon to reflect on the Golden Rule. Christmas may be a religious observance in the strictest sense, but it's culturally ingrained as well, even among many non-christians. Gift giving, though often over-emphasized, is still the expression of benevolence toward others. Graciously receiving gifts, the same. Don't we seem more social this time of year? Church gatherings, of course, but there are also office parties and pageants and plays and family reunions as well as the exhilaration of shopping amid the vibrant crowds. The Golden Rule is not really a rule to follow as much as it is a reminder of what we human beings really are as we struggle to make all things be equal.   

The one about Christmas Smoke

Some of you may know that I am enamored of the philosophy of Tao.  Not that it answers all the questions, of course, but because it's an icon of human perception of the universe.  Positive and Negative.  It allows for a balanced view of things.  Sitting here using the computer, I am aware that this machine performs its functions solely using combinations of positive and negative units.  It is the principle of Tao unfolding before my eyes with every stroke of the keys. 

When I was a christian, I lived with an example of this positive and negative play of forces.  They told me the Old Testament and the New Testament were both, together, the perfect word of our god.  Yet, the messages contained, both explicit and  implicit, were opposites in many ways.   They also told me that Jesus was god in the flesh and his teachings were primary.  The Book of the Gospels was paraded to great fanfare and ceremony during worship in order to underscore the preeminence of the words of Jesus over any other teaching.  Only an ordained minister could read aloud from the Gospels during worship, they were that highly regarded... in form.

But even a cursory look at the "perfect word of god" shows Jesus and the Old Testament are often at odds.  This allows for some fancy footwork on the part of those wily christians, though.  If Jesus is too tough, well, you can still obey god by appealing to the Old Testament for an easier path to walk.  If the Old Testament is too gory for your tastes, then you can claim Jesus, or better yet, you can do what christians have done for centuries, just mix the Old Testament and Jesus together in unequal portions, and you can create a watered-down version of both that on the surface looks perfectly biblical!  Turn the other cheek when it suits you, and tear your enemy a new one when that suits you.  "Keep them guessing" might be the motto inscribed over every church door.  The trouble I see these days, though, is that christians are more and more ignoring the Jesus part (except the mechanical element of human sacrifice on the cross, of course) and finding the teachings of the Old Testament preferable to the teachings of their sacrificial victim himself.  Divorce runs amok among christians even though Jesus doesn't allow it.  Tea Party christians don't want to pay their taxes even though Jesus says to pay your taxes.  Christians are often first in line to call for "nuking" the bad guys when Jesus says not to nuke the bad guys, or words to that effect.

During this time of the year, you will hear that tired old motto: Keep Christ in Christmas.  Maybe you'll hear this one, too:  Jesus is the Reason for the Season.  Both make my eyes roll involuntarily, but keep in mind that christians, and usually the most vociferous ones, are drinking their holiday punch watered down.  They make excuses for the teachings of Jesus and why he was wrong misinterpreted.  So when you hear the christians huffing and puffing about Jesus, just remind yourself that they don't care any more for Jesus than we atheists do.  It's all just Christmas smoke.

The one about the plumbing

Have I moved to a new address? Unfortunately, no. Korea has been revamping its address system for the postal service, and our building's new address was tacked on to the house a while back.  I've been seeing this for years in the larger cities, and I just assumed it was another adventure in futility since nobody knows their "new" address even if it was assigned and posted years ago. The utility companies use the old address system.  When I registered my motorbike, the precinct office wanted the old address.  Under the old system, neighborhoods and towns were divided up into what we might call "blocks", and each block is assigned a number.  Business or housing units within the block were assigned an additional number.  My neighborhood is called "Yonggang". My block in that neighborhood is number 1358.  My building is number 10.  Easy, eh?  Well, now they've started naming streets.  Of course, nobody knows the name of the street they live on, because street names weren't part of life before.  So, here's my new address using the street names system:  My street is Sogeumgang Road 29th Street, house number 7.  Smaller streets are named as adjuncts to larger streets, so if you know the name of the large street nearby, your little street will be named after it with a number to indicate which little street it is.  The big street a block away is Sogeumgang Road (named after the nearby hill).  I'm on the 29th street off that road.  I could get used to it, I suppose.

Speaking of housing, I got up one morning a few days ago to find excess water on my kitchen floor.  The cloth I put down in front of the sink was sopping wet; the under-floor heating had evaporated most of the rest, though.  I thought I had just been too messy while washing dishes the night before, but yesterday, I noticed the wood on the kitchen floor was buckling a little.  The amount of water needed to do that was more than I ever spill washing dishes, so my curiosity was piqued.  Something happened, but the cabinet under my sink was bone dry, so it wasn't a leak in my plumbing.  Later, I noticed this sign out in the foyer:

It is not clear what the meaning is.  On the surface, it basically says the water tank broke and got into the electrical stuff in the wall.  Be careful.  Then some scribbling that I can't decipher, and then the cost of repairing, but not sure exactly what was repaired or why I have to know that and the cost.  The water tank floater is propped up there with an arrow that says "Look".  No indication who wrote it, though.

For thirteen years I've lived in a mystery novel.  This is just the latest example of what it's like to live here and try to piece together stories and information from people whose culture doesn't like them speaking bluntly or directly.  Every day I have to follow their circular thought patterns round and round until I get an idea of what's going on, and then half the time my conclusions are wrong.

The one about the Myth of Christ

Since I don't watch TV anymore, it seems kind of strange, perhaps, that my favorite mug is the one I got at CNN Center last summer.  Let me assure you, however, that I only got it for its size and sturdiness, not the company it represents!

But since the topic of CNN came up, I found a clip from CNN on YouTube about the atheist billboard that went up in New Jersey.   The interviewer talked to the president of the American Atheists and to the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue.  Donohue complained, "Are we just pinatas? Are we going to accept this kind of thing as a doormat?"  The implication being that you can throw up any piece of trash on a billboard (and we've all seen some pretty racy billboards) or any religious message we want or any charitable group's message, or virtually anything, but no way can we allow atheists to express themselves.  There it is in a nutshell.  Religion wants complete and unquestioned acceptance by everyone in society while non-believers are forced to defend themselves and their public rights from an onslaught of religious hysteria.

Honest christians are becoming more and more aware that the Christmas myth is much, much older than their particular cult's version.  The story of Jesus was lifted from earlier myths, and the story of the virgin birth of a god is so old nobody knows when or where it actually first started.

Yes, there is nothing original in christianism.  It is only the latest christ myth out of many.  Sure, it feels good to believe it.  It's kind of satisfying in a puerile way, but the human mind cannot be fooled for long unless we deliberately choose to do so.  Christ is a myth, but that doesn't mean we can't have a load of good cheer and fun during midwinter!   I don't care whether you call the virgin-born god Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Jesus, or Mithra, or whether you call the day Victory of the Sun, Birthday of Sol Invictus, Christmas, or Haloea.   I don't care what you believe or the names they go by.  No, really, I don't.  So, I won't say your billboards are offensive if you won't say mine are just because the message is different. It's only fair to want the same consideration in return.  Can you do that for me?

The one where the wind comes whistling through the panes

I got up this morning and read the outside temperature as 38°F (3°C).  That's the lowest I have seen so far, and it's depressing.  But it's Korea, so having the windows closed doesn't necessarily mean the cold wind stays outside.  The window and door sealing products industry does a brisk business, pardon the pun, during the initial shock of winter.  Korean construction techniques are probably the worst in the world north of the 30th parallel.  They are shoddy, unsafe, and wasteful.  My friends and I often shake our heads when even the simplest room isn't square or plumb and floors crown or tilt.  Windows are placed in buildings where the openings vary in size so much that even an extra tube of silicon putty isn't enough to seal some of them. That is one of the drawbacks of their poured concrete method of building walls and floors.  In come the sealant products to the rescue.  Even our Homeplus, as small as it is, sticks three racks of sealant products in the middle of an aisle because they are guaranteed sales.

In 12 years, I have seen little let-up to the deplorable construction methods here.  Buildings have stopped falling down, though, so I suppose there has been some improvement in oversight.  Unscrupulous construction company owners would often scrimp on concrete quality to line their pockets leading to the deaths of innocent people when the bridge or store or housing unit collapsed.  It's probably only a matter of time before bribes reach the necessary level to allow for that again.  The public, instead of demanding better quality construction techniques, simply do what they've always done, take it in the ass and say "Thank you", then go spend too much money on temporary fixes every year that allow them to sit in their homes with a modicum of comfort.

Why don't they stand up to the construction companies and demand better quality or better building techniques?  Because Koreans seem to believe that they are powerless against such huge forces.  They are not a people of individual independence, ambition, or resolve.  They are not the kind of people who see a problem and independently make a point to take it on and solve it.  They are not the kind of people who see trash on a public floor and pick it up to throw it away.  They do not see themselves as actors within the play of society. They are passive and prefer to lie low hoping to be  overlooked by the terrible forces of life swirling about them.  Not all, but many, enough to create a national characteristic of acquiescent docility.  They are also fanatical about Korea appearing better than it really is.  They ignore problems and go out of their way to cover them up.  If Korea can save face by filling its country with jerrybuilt crap, so be it.  However, it's impossible to hide their characteristics from us who live here.  A Korean might break into tears reading this and wish I would leave their country and never come back because I say such "hateful" things. An independent thinker, a grown-up, would read this and say, "It's true" and try to do something, anything, to make things better.  Not to please foreigners, but to please themselves.  To make their own lives more comfortable, to save money in the long run, to enjoy good buildings that last more than a few years, to be able to say, "We do things right and we're proud of it."

The one about dignity

People in my profession, teaching English to speakers of other languages, we sometimes find the right place and settle in, sometimes we just drift from country to country.  Maybe it depends on one's age, I don't know, personal disposition maybe, but I have been in Korea now for over 12 years.  That isn't to say I don't fantasize about the liberty of youth who think little of hopscotching around the globe teaching in whatever countries they want or can.  I do.  Anyone in this profession who isn't married to a Korean more than likely dreams of wandering to other lands every so often. We aren't paid as well as Korean English teachers, of course, and we're not respected for what we do, but it's a peaceful country with generally nice people who pretty much leave us alone to pursue our various pastimes.  It grows on you.  The initial shock of their lifestyle fades after a few weeks.  The garish town life and piles of trash become the accepted norm.  

The constant noise (of all kinds) was hard to handle at first, and health suffers from the tension it creates.  However, you can learn how to deal with it, to accept it, to let it run in the background without affecting you mentally or physically, if you want to.  A lot of people come here to teach, but don't figure out how to handle the filth, the noise, the tasteless neon, the dirty air, and the lack of space.  They usually end up leaving before their time, and I don't blame anyone who does that.  Few people help foreigners adjust to the unusual world of Korea, and when the foreigner cannot handle the craziness on his own, he has no choice but to leave in order to salvage his health and well-being.  I understand that.  I have almost left a couple times myself just to get my mind back from the brink. On the outside, it seems like a dishonest thing to do, to leave before your time, but from a human point of view, it's sometimes the right thing to do.  The Koreans often bring this on themselves, so I have little sympathy for their plaints against those who choose to leave.  We are not going to "become Korean" just because we are in their country.  They are not going to get run-of-the-mill people to come here.  People who go to live and work in other countries are not a common breed.  There is something a little unconventional about us from the start.  We are braver than many. We value our freedom.  We are curious.  We are willing to learn.  But, we will not sacrifice our dignity indefinitely.

The one where christianity disproves itself

This is from ProfMTH on YouTube. He outlines one of the points about the cult of christ that got me re-thinking my commitment to this nonsense several years back now. He uses examples of some christian sects, but there are so, so many who declare Jesus as the son of god, but these believers are divided, sometimes violently, among themselves. My own former faith, the Anglicans, have been dividing over their views of the bible lately, a collection of literature that should surely be ignored by intelligent people. Many other sects have divided over a lot less. Believers in christ must see that this division is contrary to the teachings of their magic book, but they persist in it anyway. The bible says that you must believe that Jesus is the son of god in order to be saved, yet each sect has decided to add something more to the requirement, to expand on that simple notion. They decided not to associate with those who don't like their new take on things. They sometimes fight those who disagree. They excommunicate or ostracize people who haven't quite bought the sect's point of view completely. The very proof that the cult of christ is wrong is in the people who claim it as their own.

The one with the battery

 For about a month I've been having to push start my motorcycle.  At work, parking on a hill helps, but at home, on level terrain, well, let's just say I left out a note to my loved ones every morning in case I had a heart attack trying to start my bike.  However, yesterday was free and I went in to have the oil changed and the battery looked at.  And he said I needed a new battery, but since he had just put one in last March, he didn't charge me for the new battery.

I was fascinated to see the process of preparing a battery and installing it in the bike.  They take this package of liquid, unseal it, and stick it in the holes in the case.  (Rob tells me over my shoulder that it is distilled water.)  Then they hook it up to an electrical current to charge it, and it goes under the seat.  What you can't learn by observing, eh?

Today for lunch, I whipped up some meat pies since Rob was up visiting from Busan and I try to have something Western when he visits.
It actually tastes pretty good, if I do say so myself... and I do.

The one about the Constitution

Like fundamentalist christians who read the bible as literal, the very words of God committed to paper and ink, the new right has taken to reading the U.S. Constitution the same way.  They nitpick about this passage and that passage the same way they do about selections of the bible that prove troublesome to them.  They blame "the media" (their convenient whipping boy) for interpreting the Constitution differently than they do despite the long record of justices both conservative and liberal performing that almost thankless task.  And why have justices been interpreting the Constitution for us these last 220 years?  Because the Constitution says they have to.  How ironic.

The framers of the Constitution, if their personal papers are any indication of the thoughts that went into it, expected the Constitution to be changed as time went along.  Not a one of them seemed to think the document was a static organ of state handed down from Olympus or Heaven or wherever your favorite deities reside.  You don't really have to read their personal papers to learn that, though, since the principle of change is built into the Constitution itself.  It outlines how the document can be altered and amended.  If it weren't meant to be changed, then why would they include directions on how to change it?


The Constitution is not the bible for our government.  It's simply the agreed-upon source of law for the United States.  It was argued over and hammered into existence by men whose goal was to create a union of several states working together under a central coordinating government.  It was designed to maintain the autonomy of the states but also create the means for these states to cooperate in harmony for the good of the entire nation.  It has not always been successful, and those times of failure have required people of good intention to try to repair the deficiency.  I'm disheartened when I hear Tea Party loyalists insisting that this branch of government or that President "return" to the Constitution or "start following" the Constitution.  Then it dawns on me that these Tea Party folks don't know anything about the Constitution, its purpose, place, or history, like they slept through social studies classes and civics courses, if they actually studied it at all.


A return to the "original" Constitution would mean no Bill of Rights.  It would mean a black man would only legally count as three-fifths of a man.  Non-whites would be denied the vote.  Women would be unable to vote.  Involuntary servitude would be legal.   18- to 20-year olds would definitely be unable to vote, including our soldiers, even though they are risking their lives for our country.  Is that what the Tea Party devotees really want?  Personally, I don't think they know what they want.  Almost everyone in America is feeling left out and marginalized, but it isn't because of misreading the Constitution.  It's because the richest 10% of the nation is pulling the strings on us citizen puppets.  The middle class and poor are dancing to the tune of the plutocrats who rule our country from secret back rooms.


The uneducated and undereducated masses of Americans don't have the acumen or wherewithal to know everything that's happening in the upper reaches of Mount Olympus Wall Street.  They just know something is wrong.  They want to have a voice.  So they blame teachers not leading children in prayer at school.  They blame the courts for not siding with their religious doctrines.  They blame science for not teaching mythology as fact.  They blame condoms.  They blame gays.  They blame Canada.  They blame Mexico.  They blame Europe.  They blame whatever is different now than it was a hundred years ago as though life had been better in "the good ol' days."  The United States chose the path of individual liberty over social responsibility a long time ago.  American individuals wanted to be able to do whatever the hell they felt like and damned be anyone who got in the way.  There is a price to pay for this socially irresponsible free-for-all.  It means any Jack, Jill, or Johnny can start a tax-free business called a church and bilk the suckers who join out of their livelihoods.  It means a bank can charge whatever it wants in interest no matter how crushing the weight.  It means a railroad company can take your farm without paying a fair market price for it.  It means a city can take your house and land to sell to a private business enterprise.  It means a food chain can pour bleach on its ham and sell it as edible.  It means gas rises to three dollars a gallon while oil executives enjoy "unexpected windfalls" from gas sales.  It means corporations in America pay nothing in corporate taxes decade after decade because of the generous loopholes granted by Congress.   But more insidiously, it also means that our governing oligarchs will rake in billions of dollars of profit on the backs of the American working poor while Congressmen and Judges enjoy luxurious holidays abroad for greasing the wheels of law and justice in favor of the plutocracy.


No, it isn't the Constitution.  It's just us.  I hope America will continue to correct the mistakes of its past and move toward democratic social responsibility.  Like everything else on earth, America is evolving little by little, and it's scaring people.  Good.


Photos: 
obamaconspiracy.org                                                                                                                                                      
rubylane.com

The one about plutocrats

I just saw Art Robinson, a kook running for Congress from Oregon on the Republican ticket, on Rachel Maddow's TV show.  If that guy is one of the sane Republicans, then there is no hope for them.  He just sat there yelling at the interviewer instead of talking about anything meaningful or responding to questions.  Of course, he's playing to the glee of his half-wit supporters, but still, he could at least be a gentleman and pretend to be interviewed.  I was so disgusted by that arrogance, I am glad I don't live in his state, or he'd be getting a stern letter from me.  A man who aspires to public office and can't be relied upon to stay civil and answer reasonable questions before an international audience is unfit for public office.  But that standard fell by the wayside a long time ago, I suppose.  The United States has always been a land of money-grubbing politicians fawning over the wealthy plutocrats at whose teats they suckle, but there were codes of honorable public behavior in days past.  You can be passionate without being rude.  You can extol the virtues of your beliefs without denying the same to others.  You can guide interviews toward your points without yelling at the interviewer.  The longer I live, the more disgusted I am with the rich, with big business, with Republicans, and with religion.  It all turns my stomach.






  

The one with a flip

Like most people, sometimes I'm patient and sometimes I'm not.  There are times when I'm not patient, but I put on a good show to appear patient, and sometimes, oddly enough, I'm actually patient but appear impatient to onlookers.  Go figure.

One of the most striking cultural characteristics of the Koreans is their seemingly total lack of patience.  Their very language gives a hint.  Movement and action almost invariably include the word for "quickly."  "Quickly do!"  "Quickly come!"  Even when there isn't the real need, perceived need, or even hint at urgency in the situation.  When I first came to Korea in 1997, there were no number slips at the bank to determine who got to see a teller next; everybody simply struggled for the teller's attention, pressing against the counter like European soccer fans on game day.  The same was true in the market where you physically had to stand your ground to get your purchases added up and pay the bill against the press of those competing for the clerk's attention.

Most of my close brushes with death in this country have been on account of not my impatience, but that of the natives.  Behind the wheel of a vehicle or sitting on a motorbike, what pretense at patience they might possibly have is disregarded more than ever.  While riding my motorcycle to work, there is a sharp curve in a one-way section of the road.  Behind me today, a taxi appeared, and I could see that he had no fare, but he did his best to try to squeeze by me on my left as we went round this sharp curve in a cramped place in the roadway.  I came to a stop forcing him to stop, too, since there was no room for him to go by me and proceeded to show him with my left hand how I felt about his impatient risk of my life.  For good measure I showed him my right hand, too, as I got ready to pull away.  He was not happy that he had to come to a stop and see such vulgarity, especially from a foreigner and one on a motorcycle no less, nearly the bottom of the social ladder.  Was I impatient?  Obviously not since I was willing to stop.  I was angry, and I consider someone else risking my life because his culture is so treacherous to be worth a little display of anger now and again.  Does it do any good?  Not in the least.  Koreans have this knack of dismissing anything that is not of them, not of their culture, not customary, not "our", as they say.  I'm mindful that my anger is futile, but isn't there some therapeutic value in expressing oneself?  Death and maiming are not pleasant things, I'm sure.  So long as these are possibilities at the hands of the "quickly" culture, I'm all for free expression.

The one about Korean Hierarchy

Korean society is marked by its innate sense of social status. In order to interact with others fluidly, you need to understand what the social status is of others. Over the millennia, the Korean language itself developed levels of speech to indicate the relationship to the people they are talking to and even the people they are talking about in some instances. The structure of language evolves according to the social structure in which it lives, and that explains why two similar societies like Japan and Korea have similar language structures, but whose languages are completely unrelated to each other.

It is unsurprising, therefore, to see the Korean social structure reflected in other aspects of life beyond language. Car ownership here has increased exponentially over the last twenty years. The car driving culture is quite young, but the need for order on the public roads is as pressing as anywhere else. There are traffic laws, of course, and these provide a basic framework in which to operate. Drive on the right hand side of the roadway, turn your lights on at night, and use your wipers when it's raining. However, beyond those fundamentals, most other behavior on the road is dictated by social mores and cultural traditions.

Just as in general society, social status on the road is important to the well-ordered lifestyle of the Korean people. There is a hierarchy of people; and there is a hierarchy of traffic. Not all vehicles are equal, and I'm not talking about emergency vehicles. Emergency vehicles are, unfortunately, not on the top of the social hierarchy of the roadway. Expensive cars indicate a higher social status for the driver and occupants. Therefore, a pricey car takes precedence over a cheaper car. An SUV takes precedence over a sedan as does also a twelve-seater caravan. Taxis and busses are, however, almost the top of the hierarchy on a Korean roadway. Only construction vehicles like cement trucks are higher. Hence, busses and taxis are exempt from most traffic laws and use their status to bully dominance at traffic lights and other intersections where they are not obliged to obey red lights or stop signs. After four, six, and eight-wheeled vehicles come motorcycles. Two-wheeled vehicles are lumped together in one category which means an 1800cc Yamaha Roadliner is no different than a 50cc scooter as far as the Korean roadway hierarchy goes. All two-wheeled vehicles are so low on the social ladder as to be banned on all expressways in the country. The only thing lower in social status are bicycles and pedestrians.

The implications for this are rather predictable for folks who can see more than a couple seconds into the future. Car crashes abound in Korea simply because one person feels he is a higher social status than the other guy and tries to exert his dominance while the other guy is thinking exactly the same thing. Two egos cannot occupy the same piece of road at the same time. When turning into traffic, you don't assess how closely and how quickly the cross traffic is approaching; you assess their social status and pull into traffic or sit still accordingly. A car arriving at a crossroads will see a motorcycle approaching from a distance of thirty meters. Since the motorcycle is a lower social status, the car will pull out in front of the motorcycle obliging the rider to veer out of his lane or make a hard stop to avoid a collision. There is no fault as the car obviously outranks the motorcycle. The same is true up the social ranking system of vehicles with busses and taxis barely stopping at crossroads, if at all, since few other vehicles outrank them.

This system of social hierarchy is the guiding principle for driving in Korea. It affects every driving situation you can imagine, but it seems to remain favorable in the eyes of the Korean public despite its drawbacks.

The one with the Amish

I saw a sign on the news being held by someone demonstrating against the Islamic Center in New York: "Ground Zero Mosque: Religion Preying on Freedom."  Of course, adherents of Islam would disagree, but that's to be expected.  Religion does something to the mind that alters its perceptions.  The English word 'religion' evolved more than likely from a Latin word that indicated obligation, dependence, and binding.  Islamic cultists themselves describe their faith as one of submission, a suitable synonym for dependence and binding.  But the concept is not foreign to the christian cult:  "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God." (Letter of James).  I will not elaborate on the humbleness of today's modern mega-preachers (or even the humbleness of small-time pastors in Gainesville, Florida) or the humbleness of the politicians being spewed up from among the christ cultists around the country, only to say that a wry grin often crosses my face, and sometimes a slow shake of the head.

"Religion preying on Freedom."  Someone asked me once why I don't support independence for Tibet, and my response was, I oppose any attempt of a religion to establish a state.  Religion is dangerous enough without giving it such immense power over the lives of millions of people and reserving the halls of law and justice for only those who adopt an orthodox religious point of view, whatever that religion is.  Yes, religion preys on freedom.  The religious concede that a believer sacrifices his or her freedom, but the sacrifice is to a beneficent being of ultimate wisdom and power.  How could you turn that down?  It's the perfect freedom, they say.  Yet, my observation is that God does not personally direct the affairs of the world.  Just a cursory view will show that if anyone is in charge, he or she is a complete incompetent.  The usual counter by believers is that the world is in chaos because we haven't all submitted to God's grace and peace.  But the chaos I see is among devout religious people, not unbelievers!  How can you explain that?  It seems, just looking at the observable world around me, that submission to God increases agitation.  It provokes hateful words.  It incites angry outbursts.

About the only religious people I can find that are not filled with simmering rage and malcontent are the Amish.  If all religious people were like the Amish, you would probably never hear a peep from us atheists!  The Amish live their own lives not bothering others, not infused with the need to change the world and impose the Old Testament on everyone.  They choose to live according to their faith, and if others don't choose that route, so be it.  It doesn't affect their faith in the least to have non-believers for neighbors, senators, governors, judges, sheriffs, and so forth.  Their faith does not depend on making sure it is dominant in the world or even in the nation.  Their faith is strong even without the force of congress behind it, probably because they believe that their God is actually all powerful and in control, quite unlike the new God of the modern Islamic or Christ cults Who just can't get enough people to pray in public without having to pass laws forcing it on them.  Just looking around, I get the impression that the overtly religious, those politicians and mega-pastors who want to make their religion the law of the land, they probably harbor fears which impel them to enslave others so as to make themselves feel better, creating the camaraderie of the damned, so to speak.  If these rising religious politicians and mega-pastors had a faith that matched in strength that of the Amish, they would run for office and preach positively instead of the negative attempts to bring unbelievers under the yoke of christ no matter what.  I don't care what your religion is, if you have one at all; I do care whether you are competent to lead.  Your single issue stances, be it immigration, gay rights, medical abortion, or tax breaks for billionaires do not make you qualified to lead.  I'd rather have a person I don't agree with on my pet issue, if that person is competent, than to have a sycophant in congress or the state capitol who has to make all his or her decisions based on which way the winds of religion are blowing that day.  Your faith is irrelevant to my life just so long as you make sure it is irrelevant.  The moment you start insisting that your cult's little view of the world should be enshrined in law that affects me, then we have a problem.

Yeah, religion preys on freedom, and that's why any candidate in these midterms who touts his or her faith will not get my vote.  I love my freedom, and I'm not about to hand it over to a bunch of spirit-filled bootlickers.

The one with the Recovery Act

Someone posted an Ann Coulter article on Facebook in which she was chastising the radical far right for calling the President a Muslim. “He's not a Muslim; he's an atheist” was basically her article. I got the biggest kick out of that, mainly because she really intended to be insulting to the President, but to me, I only wish he were atheist. We haven't had an atheist president as far as I know, at least not one who was honest about it. So I made a video about the word “atheist.” 

Ann Coulter is not stupid, but she says deliberately stupid things mainly to whip up her crowd into a mindless frenzy.  Now Saint Glenn Beck is jumping on the bandwagon. Did you hear about his rally in the capital? “Restoring Honor” he called it. Of course, the only way you can say that is if you believe America has lost its honor. And the only way I can see in the last decade that America has lost its honor would be the unprovoked invasion and conquest of a (near) third-world country under false pretenses after lying to the U.N. about intelligence on said country.  

Attempting to get medical insurance for more Americans, however, seems to be Beck's idea of losing honor. Asking the rich to sacrifice for the nation by returning to the former tax rates also seems to be our loss of honor. Keeping the states from defaulting by means of the Recovery Act must also be a loss of honor, since he rants against that, too. My county in Michigan received 669,000 dollars from the Recovery, and that meant the difference between a complete meltdown of police, sheriff, fire, schools, and emergency services and giving the local councils some breathing space to reorganize.  Of course, we all know that the economy started tanking because Bush was dumping trillions of borrowed dollars into his phony war in Iraq, and that “war” in Afghanistan that he kept simmering on the back burner sending up billions of dollars in smoke every month because he's... an idiot? … malicious? … unconcerned with our military? … more interested in punishing Sadam than Bin Laden?  Bush's policy caused this Great Recession and it's high time the radical right faced up to it.   Screaming slogans and waving signs is not patriotism as much as giving more in taxes to pay for the war effort you so loudly acclaim. Actions speak louder than words, and these anti-tax buffoons are demonstrating on a daily basis by their unwillingness to shell out bucks for the war (that they supported) that they don't really give a shit about the war, the country, our soldiers, or our national solvency.  Tea Party?  No, just another bunch of spoiled white entitlement crybaby hypocrites.

Images:  

newsone.com

themoderatevoice.com

The one where friends need restraining

Have you ever been out with friends, well, men probably have experienced this more than women, but you never know. You're out with friends, and maybe you all have been drinking, and one of your friends sees something he takes offense at and starts in to teach the offender a lesson. And you and the others try to dissuade him from making a fool of himself, yet he persists, so you and the others try to restrain him from his intent. Your friend maybe gets angry at you and snaps at you and might even take a swing at one or more of you because you have violated his ethics. He thinks that dude over there needs to be taught a lesson, and you aren't letting your buddy go over there and teach it to him. The end result can go either way. He might break free and proceed to make a fool of himself by trying to "straighten out" the offending individual, with success falling nowhere near perfect, or you might succeed in restraining him from that dangerous outcome. That's kind of how I feel about christians in the United States. 

Though they believe they are defending American society, they are introducing innovations that contradict the body of experience garnered by the American people over the last 400+ years on this continent. They are gleefully ripping to shreds the core principles of the Republic founded by people who wanted freedom without coercion. The fundamentalists say that those who do not submit to the precepts of their religion are exercising undue pressure on them to abandon their religion, because the modern christian right equate the nation with their religion. They see no division between state and religion, and this is because they read the Hebrew Scriptures (“Old Testament”) as a literal blueprint for a successful and blessed society. Not following the Hebrew Scriptures results, in their minds, to the destruction of the nation by the same vengeful god of the bible who dismantled the Jewish nation at least twice. The rest of us have varying opinions on this ranging from “we've got to stop these maniacs” to “don't hit them too hard.”  We're the friends who are trying to hold back another friend from making an ass of himself. The christian right are hell-bent to rip this country to shreds. You can see it all around. The polarization did not start with the liberal left. Anyone who knows what liberals stand for knows that we do not like polarization. We want a diverse society of people who enjoy their differences yet respectfully allow others to choose different paths. We liberals want a society where people can present their viewpoints as options, not edicts.  Our resistance to the right is not polarization; it's the desire for self-determination.  We are not the ones who say “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” The radical right has removed all pretense at reconciliation or tolerance. Those of us who are trying to talk sense into our out-of-control friends are being attacked as the problem, as people who have abandoned morality, because we don't let the religious right take over and “set things straight”. Religious people: sleep it off!  If you had your way, you'd be sorry for it within a month.

The bar fight picture I can't find the creator, but I tried.  The cartoon is from Atheist Eve at yoism.org.

The one where I mock jingoism.

There is a competition waged in America lately, a subtle combat gone virtually unnoticed even though its effects appear on jacket lapels, lawn ornaments, bumper stickers, and flagpoles across the country.  Who can wear the biggest or best pin?  Who can squeeze one more sticker on the car? Who is the most patriotic by flying the biggest flag in town?  I'm half expecting some community to start remodeling rooftops so that they create a large American flag effect when seen from above.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least.

At last, I have grown accustomed to tipping again.  No longer do I walk out of the restaurant without dropping a few dollars extra on the table for the waitress.  However, tipping might be getting a little out of hand when a drive up coffee kiosk wants a tip for...
for...
for what exactly is this little tip bucket dangling here in front of me?

My visit to America is drawing to a close.  As usual, I'm reluctant to leave, but simultaneously anxious to get home.  My travel bags are stuffed with goods unavailable in Korea, and I've said most of my good byes.  It was a good holiday for the most part, but I will certainly be happy to get back to my home, sleep in my own bed, and cuddle my sweet little kitties again.

The one where the wild calls

The differences between Atlanta and the back woods of Michigan are rather stark.  It's cooler here, though the Michiganians think it's sweltering for some reason.  There are a lot fewer people in Michigan.  And there is no internet connection out "on the farm".  It isn't really a farm, but that's what I call it.  25 acres in the country is a farm to me, I don't care what crops they don't grow.

I enjoy my visits, however.  It's so different from what customs I've cultivated in Korea.  Without internet, I can't watch videos, check my mail, read a blog, or any of several other activities that have become so commonplace to me over the last 13 years.  Meals are on a schedule and consist of plain country fare with fruits and vegetables harvested and canned the previous year, unadorned meats, rough

hewn bread and a tall glass of water drawn straight from the tap but tasting like a mountain spring.

After a homemade dessert of pie or cake or even sometimes ice cream, we gather in front of the television to watch the evening news followed by either an Agatha Christie story or Red Green.  We banter lively and test our theories about who Hercule Poirot will finger, or we laugh heartily at the antics of the Possum Lodge!

Bedtime comes early, about 10:30, maybe 11 if there's something especially interesting on the TV.  Dawn breaks as we awake the next morning.  The window is open, and the sounds of the breeze in the poplars, the birds collecting their breakfast, and Jack sipping his coffee on the back deck drift into my little bedroom off the garage.

I'm jealous of them, the people who live this life every day of every year.  I doubt I could be totally happy living this way all the time, but for this summer, it is the most wonderful place on earth.

Next week I return home, and though it's a world away, I hope that a little bit of my stay in the Michigan countryside will follow me down the road to Korea.

The one where a shirt speaks for me

The last couple weeks in America, I have noticed that there are a LOT of fat people.  I'm no Twiggy, granted, and compared to Koreans, I am definitely a big guy, but here in the States, I look rather slim next to some of these folks!  Maybe here is a reason:

Candy vending machines!  I had forgotten about them, because I only see them here.  This one looks so inviting, eh?  Plus, everything you order at a restaurant here is double the size it should be. Today I got a burrito at the Raging Burrito downtown, and it was bigger than both my fists side by side!  I haven't been able to finish a restaurant meal here since I arrived!  What does it say about a people who eat so much while so many on earth starve to death?  And it isn't that the fat Americans don't realize people are starving, it's that we seem not to care.  I got mine, to hell with you.  That's not right; shame on me, too. 

Oh, I had a wonderfully long and friendly chat with a lady and her incompetent assistant (but a sweet gal nonetheless) about Korea, Korean money, culture, and motorcycles, the army, weather, and god only knows what else we covered.  She runs a T-shirt printing shop in some mall that I came across by accident while looking for the drugstore I had dropped some film off at.  I wandered into her shop while contemplating hanging around for a movie to start, and when I realized where I was, I told her I was a Democrat and I wanted a shirt to emphasize that by saying the following:

She instantly knew what I was getting at, and we had a good laugh.  There's an election today, and she warned me not to wear this today in public! LOL  However, I like it, and I don't mean it literally, though I'm sure some right wing radical would easily oblige me if he had the chance!  Considering all the hate-filled signage we've seen from tea partiers the last year, my T-shirt is rather tame, I would say.

The one where I ate a reuben

This is the motorcycle I chose to buy while I was in Georgia.  I learned a lot about registering vehicles in Georgia, but I'm not upset over my mistakes with it all.  Mistakes are honorable teachers and I respect them. As you might know, if I do not learn something constructive on vacation, it's a wasted vacation as far as I'm concerned.  However, the bike is registerd in the state of Michigan now, or at least it's in the process of getting registered there.  Next week it is being shipped to my hometown of West Branch where I will meet up with it and ride it around showing it off (it's a handsome ride) before storing it carefully for next time.

I enjoyed lunch today with Ryan, the guy I bought the motorcycle from.  We signed the bill of sale and had it notarized at a UPS store in Marietta and ate Reuben sandwiches at the Marietta diner before he had to go.  I am really glad fate introduced me to him.  He's a good man.  The Marietta Diner isn't a little Ma & Pa joint, but it's a diner, of sorts, and I got to sit at the counter, so it was just fine by me!








Joan got a job doing the windows for Sufi's, a restaurant which is scheduled to open this autumn in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.  I got a shot of her doing some measurements there before she left for a week's vacation in Napa Valley.

Things have not been going as planned this vacation, but I have enjoyed the rest and relaxation available.  My plans to go to Greensboro did not materialize, so I'm a little at sea about how to fill this weekend. The Waffle House museum will be open to the public this Saturday, and that is a definite MUST SEE!  (I really like diners, if you didn't know that before.)  Hey!  That's what I can do!  I can go around trying out diners around Atlanta!  To the Yellow Pages!

The one where Michigan will wait

An office/classroom floating in the sky is a fine setting for one of my final interviews of the semester.  All the grades have been entered, and all the complaining seems over as well.  Maybe my comforting and encouraging explanations satisfied the students that their grades were as fair as I could make them given the restraints of the grading curve percentages imposed on us.

Monday is my departure from Korea to the United States for a holiday.  It was meant to be a visit to my family since I had received frowny faces over the last decade that I wasn't visiting often enough.  However, I am apparently visiting too often now as nobody among my six siblings and 10 nephews and nieces living in Michigan nor even their adult children are willing to pick me up at the airport when I arrive. (Don't they know how generous eccentric uncles are?!)  So I will be visiting the one family member who actually said she'd pick me up... in Atlanta.  Therefore, I will have my holiday in Georgia and the Appalachian Mountains, and Michigan will have to wait.

The one where you can't get there from here

When I got to Busan Sunday, I needed a helmet for riding on Rob's motorbike, so we swung into E-Mart and found this adorable little number.  It really brings out my eyes and retarded side, I think.

Busan is a beautiful city, and according to Rob, you can drink beer right out in public!  I have that American stupidity ingrained, I guess, that says you need to put your beer in a paper bag if you drink outside.  What's up with that, anyway?  Why do Americans have to pretend to conceal something that is so obvious as to make the whole affair ridiculous?  Then again, what about America isn't ridiculous half the time? ㅋㅋㅋ

Being somewhat naive about almost everything Busan, I asked Rob to drop me off at Busan Station, the big central train station downtown, so I could catch a train home.  Of course, you can't go to Gyeongju from Busan from the big central train station without going to Daegu first, then backtracking to Gyeongju, making the trip about 5 hours to go 40 miles.  Needless to say, I took a bus home.  Should have taken my motorbike, but everyone said the weather was supposed to turn foul, which it did not, thank you kindly all you naysaying dumbasses!

In other news, I ordered a MacBook Pro from the Apple store in Busan, and it was delivered to my home by the creepiest delivery man I have ever encountered.  I'm used to Koreans being surprised when a "foreigner" opens the door to them, and I've encountered a few people so taken aback as to become temporarily speechless (in any language).  However, this guy showed the usual surprise (even though my foreign name was emblazoned on the box and my door!), but then he got this twisted little grin, and his eyes roved around on me and the apartment behind me in the oddest way.  I discreetly looked down to make sure all my body parts were inside my clothing and dismissed the guy politely, but quickly.  Just a little weirded out.  So, drum rolls please!  Here is my new MacBook Pro:

She's a beaut, eh?  Stay tuned for further updates about this little gal!
 

The one where I still can't have nice things

I certainly do live up to the Raymond Family motto: "Cur non possumus bona habere?"*


I was getting on my motorcycle this morning when I just happened to see Pepper not only outside, but sneaking in between our building and the one next door! (The cats are not allowed outside unsupervised.)  At first, I couldn't believe it was him, because I have a sliding glass door that separates the entryway from the rest of the house, and I distinctly remember closing it.  He must have been hiding in the entryway behind boots or something and sneaked out when I went outside to go to work.  So, I tried to sneak up on him to grab his tail but he took off just as I was closing my hand around his tail.  I instinctively lurched forward, smashing the helmet I was wearing into the corner of the building.  I would have rather gotten a black eye, though, because black eyes go away.  This helmet is barely ten days old, and already it's marred.


Anyway, Pepper didn't go far, and he came to me when I started talking to him.  Crisis averted.








*"Why can't we have nice things?"   Thanks to the YouTuber "tenneral" for helping me with the Latin!

The one where this little piggy went to market

Almost everything seems to be left up to the professional teachers in Korea.  Today HomePlus was busy with children as adults (that I assume were teachers) escorted them through the store.  All the children had little baskets, though the adults chose the items for them to put in their baskets.  I wanted to ask what was going on, but I knew better.  Whoever I asked would simply stare at me in horror, collect him/herself, then smile and scurry away.  It's the usual response I get when I ask questions here.

Was it a shopping lesson?  A PR moment for the store?  I will probably never know.

It's probably good to be taught how to shop.  My learning came with the money I pilfered from the usual locations of loose change in the average home: sofas, end tables, mother's purse, loose change spent frivolously at the dime store on plastic cars and dart pistols. I'm not a good shopper.  Usually, it's in and out a single store to be done with the burdensome deed.  Maybe I should have tagged along with the children today and learned just how shopping should be done.