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21. Deauwand Myers

Yoon's costly palace intrigue

Recently, President Yoon Suk Yeol dismissed Korea’s umbrella intelligence agency’s (National Intelligence Service, or NIS) powerful head, Director Kim Kyou-hyun, and oddly, Director Kim’s two chief deputies. Dismissing the three top officials of any country’s defense or intelligence services is unheard of for modern, advanced democracies and world powers.

2023-12-04 16:35

Korea's power in intel and satellites

“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place... The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself - anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide…to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.” - from George Orwell’s magnum opus, “1984.”

2023-11-13 16:35

The making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. - From Webster’s English Dictionary. Dr. Destiny Thomas, a preeminent scholar of the African American experience, wrote a powerful opinion piece entitled “Urbanism is Complicit in Infra-Structural Racism - And Reparations Have a Place in the Built Environment” articulating the need for reparations for African Americans, the vast majority of which are descendants of enslaved Africans.

2023-10-09 16:35

After the American Civil War, all states with enslaved populations of African descent (the Confederacy) were forced to free those populations (except in Texas, where the enslaved were informed of their hard-fought freedom later than in other states). On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union troops entered Galveston Bay, Texas. The Union Army declared that the more than 250,000 enslaved people in the state of Texas were emancipated by order of the president, (President Lincoln, at the time).

2023-08-14 14:50

Korea and perfection

There are a lot of things I like about Korean culture. Infrastructure, cuisine, dramas, K-pop music… the list is quite extensive. But we're going to have to talk about the elephant in the room.

2023-07-25 16:35

Why the full deployment of THAAD in Korea is smart

So many things. Let us first discuss the proposed deployment of American THAAD missiles in Korea. Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor who manufactures the missile defense system for America and many other countries, is not too shy to brag about its system, describing it in its white papers and online in breathy accolades: “The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) is a highly effective, combat-proven defense against short, medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.

2023-06-26 16:35

Korea and Japan have a long and troubled history with each other. They shared a variation of the Chinese writing system for centuries. Both countries share similar tastes in food (raw seafood, rice and green tea, for example), and they both have excellent infrastructure and public transportation. But Japan's brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 until 1945 and the industrial slavery of Koreans by the Japanese is still a point of contention with the Korean population, especially its politicians.

2023-05-29 16:30

American public relations in Asia

I have lived in Asia for most of my adult life. What I have found most fascinating is the great PR game America has created for the rest of the world.

2023-03-20 16:47

Korea's defense question and Bandow's piece

Way back in May of 2013, geopolitical analyst Doug Bandow wrote an incendiary, yet not widely read, column for the conservative think tank the Cato Institute about South Korea's defense posture and its dependence on the United States for military preparedness. The title, and you won't believe it: “South Korea: Close Friend of the U.S., and a Defense Welfare Queen.” The subtitle: “Even if Seoul is improbably believed to be an essential ally, it does not require U.S. defense subsidies.”

2023-02-05 17:00

Underestimated: Biden and Democrats

Old dogs can learn new tricks, or maybe for this particular old dog, he already had new tricks. For all the second-guessing of President Biden by both allies and enemies, he has accomplished more transformative legislation in his first term since at least President Johnson, who ushered in the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, Fair Housing Act, Medicaid, Medicare, and a bevy of other anti-poverty measures.

2022-11-21 14:36

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