*UPDATE*: This letter is on the Korea Times’ website! It might even be in the newspaper today, though I won’t get a chance to check until tomorrow… Here’s the published letter, which is under Thoughts of the Times. From the BigHominid’s Hairy Chasms a nasty stench was emitted, which was regarding this opinion piece in the Korea Times, by one Choi Tae-hwan, who, as the Hominid describes, “expresses the wish for greater control and surveillance of the Internet”. I got annoyed enough to actually write a response to Choi’s opinion piece. I’ve sent it to the editor of the Korea Times, in the hopes …

Again, over at Arts & Letters Daily, I found an interesting article about the women who founded those repugnant corporate marketeers of dissatisfaction, needless worry, and shame: The Czarinas of Beauty, an article by Stefan Kanfer about the founders of three of the world’s biggest cosmetics companies. Even in this time of Botox and collagen, implants and liposuction, the cosmetics industry still grossed some $60 billion last year and shows no signs of letting up. The siren appeal of a product off the shelves, a concoction that can diminish wrinkles, revive the skin, lighten the smile, and banish the years, …

Bush is going over the edge, say his aides. Not a surprise to the rest of the world, of course. Though now he’s doing spittle-flecked rants, calling anyone who disagrees with him unpatriotic, generally becoming a right old fascist. A vote for Bush really is a vote for more trouble than you want, Dear America.

You know the old saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”? It’s running through my head right now. The daughter of a coup-staging dictator? Involved in shady dealings? Unbelievable! Park Geun Hye is paid W11 million a month for her role as the head of the board of directors of the Jangsu Scholarship Foundation, which used to be the May 16 Scholarship Foundation. And yes, “May 16” refers to the May 16, 1961 coup d’etat instigated by her father. It was most likely created with funds extorted from a Busan businessman by her father’s dictatorship. Currently the foundation …

I wonder what Ritu would say about this one? IT’s a long feminist critique of the Gujarat massacres, in which the author attempts to understand why torture and mutilation of women, rather than the older-style abduction/rape/impregnation, was such a big part of what happened there. I don’t know enough about the situation to know what to think of Nussbaum’s ideas in this article, titled Body of the Nation, but I am curious to know what Ritu thinks of it. Though I do think that the Hindutva/Nazi thing is, well… hmm. I suspect every group of psycho fucks (Hindutva leaders, Nazi …

I remember buying Dissent Magazine a long time ago and really enjoying it. I’m glad it’s still around. In the Spring issue is a book review of a book I really want to read, titled Global Woman : Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Arlie Russell Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich. Telling the real story in the name of feminist solidarity is the stated aim of Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, a collection of sixteen essays by fifteen authors, including the volume’s editors, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. The …

I think this whole “metrosexual” thing happened after I left North America; I spent my last few years there cloistered deep in academia, but it was literary academia and I’m sure someone would have mentioned this at the first available namedrop of Eve Kosofsky Sedwick. But I can’t recall hearing the term till after I’d come to Korea. Anyway, I’m quite sure that many Americans will cringe or get riled up seeing this, but I found Parag Khanna’s article, “The Metrosexual Superpower”, pretty interesting. According to Michael Flocker’s 2003 bestseller, The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern …

Over at OhMyNews International, you should check out this interview with Kevin Kim, also know as The Big Hairy Hominid. He’s rightly pissed off, and while I’m not personally agitating for anything to happen (I don’t think the actions of foreigners will achieve anything and that this fight for free speech will be ineffective until Koreans themselves are willing to fight for their rights), I do really understand how he feels and I respect him for taking action the way he is. You can check out his website here. Hey, look at the photo from the article! That’s not him …

Oranckay’s got a link up and I only wish I could read it. From a feminist perspecive, a comparison of society’s reactions to the pictures of Yun Geum I and the middle school students Sim Mi Seon and Sin Hyo Sun (disturbing pics here and here), and the Kim Seon Il beheading video. The piece is in the feminist magazine Ilda. Essentially, why is it okay to show very disturbing (they are, I felt sick seeing them) pictures of women killed by Americans, but it’s not okay to show images of a Korean killed by Iraqis? Of course, it’s all …

Egypt has enacted another navel ban on its version of MTV. Egyptian TV viewers are questioning the appropriateness of suggestive music videos in a traditional, Islamic culture, saying they fear for “their daughter’s morals”. Last year, the exuberantly nubile Lebanese singer Nancy Agram excited the wrath of the People’s Assembly, who called for a ban and fines to channels airing her video, though their threats were widely ignored. Recently, however, an Egyptian girl named Rubi upset members of parliament and the TV authority enough to institute a ban (affecting state-owned TV) on music videos where women’s navels appear. In a …