Avengers! With Spoilers!

I thought Avengers: Infinity War was pretty great, with one huge caveat.  The whole thing really feels like we're being set up for a time-travel scenario where the original Avengers (all still alive, conspicuously) go back in time to prevent the murder of half the universe.

Or maybe we'll get into that comic-book thing of multiverses, where you can explode one Earth but there are hundreds of others that are just fine.

That's also incredibly lazy.

But the fact is, how else do A-listers like Spiderman and Black Panther continue to make money for Marvel?  (It's no secret they're getting sequels, as are the Guardians of the Galaxy with or without Gamora.  I'm guessing without.  My sense is that she and Loki are really-really dead, not just comic book dead.)

Nine times out of ten time-travel scenarios make for truly awful sci-fi, across all media.  They're impossible to do well because they're basically cheap -- they take away any sense of serious consequence.  They make things which should really matter into things which don't.

Scratch a Republican, a Bully Bleeds

Among the oh-so-many takes regarding Michelle Wolf decimating the Trump administration and their enablers among the Washington press corps, here's a good one by Arwa Mahdawi:

"The media needs to make sure it is speaking truth to power, not kowtowing to the powerful. However, as Wolf mentioned in her speech, even the liberal media is under Trump’s spell. 'You pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you’re profiting off of him.'

Wolf is absolutely right. We all ought to do a lot more soul-searching about how we’re covering the Trump administration. That should have been the headline that came out of Wolf’s speech; not controversy about eye shadow. 

Wolf’s words should have inspired introspection amongst the press, not a liberal backlash. So, please, spare me the faux feminist outrage about Sanders. It was just a joke. The response to it, however, has been no laughing matter."

The (excellent) line about Huckabee-Sanders' make-up aside, the "but I think you love him" was the center of the routine.  And no wonder there's been as much faux-consternation from elite DC media types (it is Hollywood for ugly people, after all) as from Republicans (the perpetually petulant).

Above all else, as a comedy routine it slayed and fifty years from now, assuming we haven't exploded the planet, we'll still be watching it.

The Three Body Problem (Including Spoilers)

I finished Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem this weekend.  It's brilliant and, like most good sci-fi, hard to paraphrase.  Without spoiling too much, it boils down to an alien first contact scenario with some significant hiccups.  First, the responders are Chinese, not American or Anglo-, and set firmly in the violent turmoil of Mao's Cultural Revolution.  Second, there is no illusion that contact with an advanced civilization would be anything but catastrophic for a backwards, primitive, environmentally rapacious group of humans who happen to inhabit Earth.

The essential question becomes not if we should make contact, but if the Earth and its people are even worth saving all.

But somehow, it isn't nihilistic -- the characters wanting the aliens to come and enslave or destroy us are quite rational in their motives.  They've seen the excesses of both Communism and Capitalism and quite righteously don't want Earthlings to spread beyond our home planet.  Being destroyed is, from the viewpoint of some, actually the right thing to do.

I'm excited to already have the second and third books of the trilogy waiting for me at home.

The Dignity of Labor

South Korea is infamous for a workplace culture of "gapjil," where superiors routinely abuse those beneath them.  In fact, Korea Air has had two recent incidents of the daughters of the C.E.O throwing tantrums, and in one case threatening the safety on an entire plane-load of passengers.

So are things changing?  Possibly:

"Although very few think drastic measures like altering the corporate name will occur, the latest incident has stimulated debate within public circles, the business community and lawmakers on ways to combat gapjil. Proposed actions even encompass revising policies and laws.

Following the nut rage scandal, a lawmaker pushed forward a bill proposing a ban on members of chaebol families working at the companies they control for a set period of time if convicted of a crime.

Experts say reform measures by chaebol and deep reflection by those in positions to exercise control over others are the most important steps that need to be taken toward a more equal society. They advocate a two-pronged approach that addresses society’s demand for change to the distorted ownership structure of major conglomerates, where managerial powers are concentrated in the hands of a few owners, while at the same time generating social consensus to highlight the problems associated with gapjil that are hurting the competitiveness of the country as a whole and tarnishing the image of Korean businesses at home and abroad."

True fact: one of the reasons I'm still in Korea after so long is that my boss did his Ph.D. in America and "gets" the major differences between Korean and American work culture.  I'm very lucky for this, given the realities of how most foreign workers are treated by Korean bosses.

"like cigarette ashes thrown away on the steets"

Events are moving very quickly on the Korean peninsula, with South Korea president Moon Jae-in set to meet with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un tomorrow.  Optimism is free of course, but it's also worth remembering that North Korea has looked ready to "thaw" before.

That said, here's a great piece about North Korea defectors to South Korea who actually want to go back, given the difficulties of missing their families and adjusting to life in a hyper-competitive capitalist society:

"Others have encouraged Kim to smuggle her family out of North Korea to join her in Seoul.

'Living here for seven years taught me what it really is like to live here as a North Korean defector,' she said. 'North Korean defectors are forever strangers in this country, classified as second class citizens. I would never want my daughter to live this life.'

'North Korean defectors are treated like cigarette ashes thrown away on the streets.'”

It's complicated, to say the least.  And while getting to unification is one thing, actual unification might be an even greater struggle for the people of both countries.

I'm A Winner

That new royal baby doesn't look so tough. Bet I could take him. . . .

— Stormy Jamesiels (@wetcasements) April 26, 2018

She Is The Law

In South Korea, traditionally mother-in-laws wield an enormous amount of power over their daughter in-laws.  There are even shows and a web comic about it:

"Audiences were shocked when actor Min Ji-young had to go to the salon because her mother-in-law insisted she look her best before visiting their house for the first time. 

Or when former flight attendant Park Sae-mi, who is currently in her final month of pregnancy, cooked food at her in-law’s house while her husband was away on business. As she worked hard preparing a meal, her mother-in-law prodded, 'When are you going to have a third child?' 

Kim Dan-bin must face her mother-in-law day and night because they run a restaurant together. All three wives, despite the fact that they are members of the family, are being abused in many ways."

 This sounds like a total nightmare, of course.

I'm Not Even Mad, That's Amazing

My college's campus is pretty nice.  It's a mix of very new and very old buildings based on a hill (lots of stairs!) with some sculptures and a goldfish pond.

This afternoon I went over from my building to the main office to pick up my midterm exams for grading.  And there it was -- about 20 groundskeepers (mostly female) had drained the pond, removed all the stones from the pond (!), and were hand scrubbing each of the stones (!!).

White People Are Easily Triggered Snowflakes

Rebecca Solnit gets it, with a vengeance:

"In the aftermath of the 2016 election, we were told that we needed to be nicer to the white working class, which reaffirmed the message that whiteness and the working class were the same thing and made the vast non-white working class invisible or inconsequential. We were told that Trump voters were the salt of the earth and the authentic sufferers, even though poorer people tended to vote for the other candidate. We were told that we had to be understanding of their choice to vote for a man who threatened to harm almost everyone who was not a white Christian man, because their feelings preempt everyone else’s survival. 'Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks,' Bernie Sanders reprimanded us, though studies showed that many were indeed often racists, sexists, and homophobes.

Part of how we know whose party it is was demonstrated by who gets excused for hatred and attacks, literal or verbal. A couple of weeks ago, the Atlantic tried out hiring a writer, Kevin Williamson, who said women who have abortions should be hanged, and then un-hired him under public pressure from people who don’t like the idea that a quarter of American women should be executed. The New York Times has hired a few conservatives akin to Williamson, including climate waffler Bret Stephens. Stephens devoted a column to sympathy on Williamson’s behalf and indignation that anyone might oppose him. Sympathy in pro-bubble America often goes reflexively to the white man in the story. The assumption is that the story is about him; he’s the protagonist, the person who matters, and when you, say, read Stephens defending Woody Allen and attacking Dylan Farrow for saying Allen molested her, you see how much work he’s done imagining being Woody Allen, how little being Dylan Farrow or anyone like her. It reminds me of how young women pressing rape charges are often told they’re harming the bright future of the rapist in question, rather than that maybe he did it to himself, and that their bright future should matter too. The Onion nailed it years ago: 'College Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He Committed.'”

This is nothing new.  I remember back in 2008 when the great Republican philosopher, Sarah Palin, referenced "real America."

Obviously, she meant white America.  From a certain conservative perspective, "American-ness" is only valid when performed by whites, and mostly white males at that.

Nice Day At The Ballpark

I made it to my first Samsung Lions game of the season yesterday.  The weather was great, the fried chicken gizzards were on fleek, and Samsung lost 5-4 to the kt Wiz, a new team in the Korean Baseball League.

For the uninitiated, Samsung actually won four consecutive titles between 2011 and 2014, but it's been downhill ever since.

Still, with the weather being perfect, it was a Friday evening well spent.

I'm In Love With A Busan Air Flight Attendant

Sometimes you just have to quote the whole fucking article:

"A flight attendant of Air Busan, a low-cost carrier, apologized Tuesday for disrespectful comments and photos posted by one of its flight attendants on Instagram.

The flight attendant, on a Busan-Jeju flight on Saturday, took photos of the passengers from behind and posted them with comments such as 'looking all the same' and 'broccoli farm.' 

It was an obvious reference to the hairstyle of the middle-aged married women or 'ajumma' in the photo. 

One of her colleagues commented, 'The plane heading to China.' 

After the post went viral, the attendant, 'I sincerely apologize to the people who may have felt hurt.'

The supervisor of the Air Busan flight promised no repeat of such inappropriate behavior by its employees.'"

What's funnier than funny?  There is no native Korean language word for broccoli -- it's a loan word (bu-ro-ko-ri).

Please marry me, obstreperous Busan Air flight attendant.

Delight And Instruct

In over 15 years of teaching I have never literally strangled a student.

I have this sinking feeling that might change soon.

Antifa Is Winning

It's sad and infuriating that circa 2018, with the victory of Cheeto Hitler, literal Nazism and Fascism are on the rise in America.  And while destroying these cancers will be messy, there's reason to be optimistic:

"The bottom line is that coordinated anti-fascist action like this has made it incredibly difficult for the 'alt-right' to organize. Major figures like Spencer have had their events turned into platforms for mass opposition, and his speeches shouted down. In 2016, he was able to host a sold out National Policy Institute conference at the famed Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, but last year, the organization got booted from the unheated barn they were forced to rent. All of the tools they had — online outreach, public events and private meetings — have essentially been stolen from them, and an entire infrastructure of doxxing and protest action have made consequence inevitable. This is not how they build 'the movement of the future.'

In a YouTube video shortly after the Michigan State debacle, Spencer recapped this failure, admitting that anti-fascist organizers had won and they cannot have public appearances anymore.

'I don't think that it's a good idea for me to host an event that is wide open to the public,' Spencer said, lamenting the pressure from anti-fascist groups. 'Things are difficult. We felt that great feeling of winning for a long time. We are now in something that feels a lot more like a hard struggle.'"

To channel the great philosopher Grumpy Cat, good.

The debate over "Free Speech" with Nazis isn't as much about the "Free" as it is about the "Speech."  Cretins like Spencer aren't interested in debate, they simply want to start a shit-storm.  Universities are under no obligation to indulge him or his Stormtroopers.  And good on the various Antifa groups for shining light on the various rats and making them scurry and cry.

What Are Years?

Wye Oak, "Lifer"

There used to be a really great concert promoter here in lovely South Korea called SuperColorSuper.  I guess there still is, but they've really cut down on the number of acts they bring over from America.  (And I can't blame them.  I can't imagine how much money and time and heartbreak it took to get even one decent act over here for just a few shows.)

Anyhow, Wye Oak has a new pretty great album out, and it reminds me of this show from five (!) years ago.

Oh Daegu, you change so quickly.

"they do share good looks and a warm personality"

Tired of the same old package tour of Seoul?  Why not rent an oppa (big brother / boyfriend) instead?  To wit:

"The term oppa is a Korean word that means older brother that women use to address older male family members, friends or romantic partners. Often used as a term of endearment, many female fans of Korean actors or singers from around the world refer to their favorite stars as oppa.

Although the oppa that tourists meet up with may not appear on popular television dramas or be a powerful stage performer, they do share good looks and a warm personality. 

This special tour service, which officially launched in April after running a successful pilot service for about a month in December, targets foreign visitors hoping to meet an oppa like the ones they have seen on TV or in music videos."

I guess this strikes me as -- mostly harmless?

How Times Change

1) Began 2018 convinced Trump would start war with North Korea, we would all die.

2) 1/4 way thru 2018, convinced Trump will start war with Russia, we will all die.

— Stormy Jamesiels (@wetcasements) April 12, 2018

It's Done. It Continues.

Impeached former president Park Geun-hye has been sentenced to 24 years in jail, primarily for coercing major companies to give money to her friends.

She will either die in jail or commit suicide.  I'm willing to bet five thousand won that after a few years she will eventually get a pardon.  But who knows....

Meanwhile, Lee Myung-bak, the president who served before her, has just been indicted on major corruption charges as well.

Imagining The Future

Michael Moorcock on the strained relationship between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke on the film version of 2001:

"If Arthur was disappointed by Kubrick’s decision to cut his dialogue and narrative to the bone, he was eventually reconciled by being able to put everything left out of the film into the novel, meaning that each man was able to produce his own preferred version. The success of the film ensured that the book became a bestseller, as audiences sought answers to questions raised by Kubrick’s version, and Arthur soon got over his disappointment, going on to write three bestselling sequels to his novel, only one of which has been filmed so far.

Inspiring governments to invest in space exploration and schoolboys to become astronauts, 2001 convinced the general public that science fiction could be taken seriously. Until Star Wars sent the genre back to an ­essentially juvenile form, the movie led to a greater understanding of the valuable creative possibilities of all kinds of science fiction. There would not be a more influential film until Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, with its sober moral resonances. It also proved to Hollywood that good, big-budget SF movies could be money-spinners and garner critical respect at the same time. Without 2001 it is unlikely the genre would have progressed to its current state."

It's a pretty amazing case of intertextuality in general.  Clarke thought they were making a straightforward sci-fi documentary about the future of space colonization.  Kubrick obviously had different, more esoteric and ambitious plans.

Also, ouch Star Wars.

Our Glorious (Killer-Robot Filled) Future

At KAIST (Koran Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), one of South Korea's premier universities, a lab is working with defense contractors to develop "autonomous weapons."  An international boycott has ensued:

"More than 50 leading academics signed the letter calling for a boycott of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and its partner, defence manufacturer Hanwha Systems. The researchers said they would not collaborate with the university or host visitors from KAIST over fears it sought to 'accelerate the arms race to develop' autonomous weapons.

'There are plenty of great things you can do with AI that save lives, including in a military context, but to openly declare the goal is to develop autonomous weapons and have a partner like this sparks huge concern,' said Toby Walsh, the organiser of the boycott and a professor at the University of New South Wales. 'This is a very respected university partnering with a very ethically dubious partner that continues to violate international norms.'”

In South Korea's defense, they do happen to share one of the largest militarized border in the world.  Also, it's hard to believe Western contractors aren't working on the very same technologies, albeit less openly.

Never Start A Trade War In Asia

It's clear that no amount of pussy-grabbing, vulgarity, racism, or spite will ever alienate Trump from his supporters.  (In fact, those are the reasons they like him.)

But a self-inflicted, outright trade war with China?

The reason I think this holds some water beyond all the White Racial Resentment stuff is two fold.  First, Americans have grown used to a Walmart lifestyle dependent on cheap shit from China and the rest of Asia.  Given a few weeks, that could be over.

Second, China is (obviously) a lot smarter than Trump.  They're going after agricultural goods from Red States like soybeans and hogs.

Again, this doesn't mean Trump is finished by a long shot.  But it means he has to explain the benefits of a trade war that not even his advisers wanted.

If that's what it takes to get him out of office come 2020, so be it.

Loyalty

nice to see the @Orioles are off to a healthy 1-3 start...

— Stormy Jamesiels (@wetcasements) April 3, 2018

Let The Music Play

"Jazz and rock worlds have continued to intersect and collide since the time frame of my research.  A significant part of the postpunk movement incorporated jazz and the avant-garde, while the Downtown New York jazz scene of Anthony Coleman, John Zorn, Don Byron, and others openly embraced punk.  Long after jazz discourse had distanced itself from dance music, musicians continued to make jazz for dancing using the rhythms of rock, funk, and soul, and jazz became an important ideological touchstone for popular DJs such as Gilles Peterson, who has made a career out of rediscovering forgotten and abandoned jazz hybrid records from the 1960s to 1970s and exposing them to new audiences of dance fans.  Miles Davis, a longstanding posthumous member of the Jazz Hall of Fame, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.  More recently, the collaborations between Los Angeles hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar and electronic music producer Flying Lotus with jazz-rooted, multi-genre musicians such as Stephen Bruner (aka Thundercat) and Kamasi Washington indicate that artists continue to reap benefits from crossing the boundaries between jazz and other forms of popular music."

-- Matt Brennan, When Genres Collide: Down Beat, Rolling Stone, and the Struggle Between Jazz and Rock

My music book kick continues.  I enjoyed this one which, despite being an academic work, was short-ish and pretty easy to get through.  Brennan charts the constantly shifting definitions of popular music, blues, jazz, and later, rock, primarily in the U.S.  Interestingly, at times it was music journalism rather than the recordings themselves that managed to establish borders between genres. 

Recommended.

Let's Talk About Sex (Or Not)

In a country as culturally conservative as South Korea, some people are demanding better and more widespread sex education for young people.  The current national curriculum is pretty terrible:

"In 2015, the Ministry of Education unveiled the National Level of School Sexual Education Standards as a compulsory nation-wide curriculum for teachers to follow. 

But the guidelines, which took the ministry two years to compile and cost 600 million won ($540,000), were met with backlash for its outdated and biased content. 

According to the material published, a possible reason for sexual violence is that 'women do not pay dating expenses and men want something in return.' It also stated that men have strong and impulsive sexual desires, and therefore, it is important for women to appropriately cope with the situation, putting the responsibility to prevent sexual assault on women. The material also advises victims of sexual violence to 'control their negative thoughts and to try to think positively.'

After backlash from the public, the ministry was forced to edit the material after a little more than a year, but organizations are still demanding that more revisions are made."

I mentioned to my students that while in high school and dating my first girlfriend, my mom drove me to the drug store to show me where and how to buy condoms.  And this wasn't out of any amount of sexual open-mindedness on her part, it was simply because she was terrified I'd get somebody pregnant.

A student responded with "that's a very American story."

Enough said.