S'Good

Get Out was fantastic.

Us is even better.

I think I'll pontificate on it a bit more later.

You'll never hear "Good Vibrations" the same way again.

"just moneyed nihilism"

Call it schadenfreude therapy, but I've been following Brexit as closely as a stupid American can.  I do think I've got the basic gist of it by now -- the Conservatives are, of course, awful, while the mostly correct-minded Labour types are stuck with leadership who are also willing to Let It All Burn Down if only to replace the smoldering ruins of London with a proper Socialist Utopia rather than a Third World Anything-Goes Tax Haven.

Anyhow, as the endgame approaches Aditya Chakrabortty is more necessary than most commentators:

"There is no heroism here, just moneyed nihilism. There are no ideas, just reheated Thatcherism about low taxes and burning red tape. These people say little about national interest, but their ears prick up when it comes to compound interest. Much has been said about how Brexit Britain might be put back together again, with solutions ranging from more cash to more listening to each other. It’s a healthy and necessary conversation. Yet one of the strongest lessons of this period is that we need a wholesale reimagining of our institutions so that they better serve the rest of us, rather than just those who run them. This was one of the promises of the leave campaign, of course, but it was always destined to be folded and put away inside the pocket of one of Rees-Mogg’s double-breasted jackets. It is up to the rest of us to rescue it and give it some meaning."

The parallels to Trump are almost too obvious.  While wealth and power have always gone hand-in-hand, what happens when a nation's rulers have nothing to lose and everything to gain by blowing up the economy, forever?  When not just the poors but even the middle and large swathes of the upper-middle classes are purely expendable in the name of profit?

The Trump tax cuts for billionaires and corporations were positively obscene.

They were, probably, just a test run for what awaits all of us sooner rather than later.

"In this at least, you're just like me / I think we think too much"

The English Beat, "Doors Of Your Heart"

I'm a Yank, so I get to call them by their long name.  Also, this video has so many levels of incredible it's hard to know where to begin.

R.I.P. Ranking Roger.

Sure, I Just Can't Stop It is a stone-cold classic, but Wha'ppen? and Special Beat Service really don't deserve to be thought of as mere follow-ups but real, definitive statements unto themselves.

Say It Ain't Soju

Koreans are notoriously hard-drinking, but things seem to be changing due to factors including lower birth and marriage rates and higher life expectancy.  So are South Koreans really hanging up their shot glasses for jogging shoes?  And pets?  Seems like it:

"The report indicates that people have started spending more on sports, health and beauty due to steady increases in average life expectancy and quality of life. According to the World Bank, the average life expectancy at birth in Korea was 82.02 years in 2016, up from 80.87 in 2012. The country recently achieved the milestone of a per-capita income of $30,000.

According to the NTS [National Tax Service] report, the number of sports facilities increased by 203.2 percent between September 2014 and September 2018. The number of skin care businesses and fitness clubs also increased by 82.8 percent and 51.1 percent, respectively.

The statistics indicate that people have been spending more on hobbies. The report showed that the number of rental cottages and guesthouses increased by 130.4 percent. The number of bike stores, sports education companies and travel agencies also saw significant increases during the same period."

I teach college students, so walking home every night past packed bars with throngs of smokers out front doesn't really jibe with the larger trends here, but it does seem like a positive outcome for the country as a whole (dangerously low birth-rate aside).

"Meatless Meat"

Is the famously meat-o-genic culture of South Korea ready for meatless variations  of animal protein?  Maybe:

"By many measures, farming is one of the most environmentally straining things humans do. Agriculture contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than all 'cars, trucks, trains and airplanes combined', National Geographic reports. Deforestation for new farms, often carved out of forests and jungles, extinguishes biodiversity. And the waste collected by modern industrial animal farming contributes to ocean dead zones.

But with an additional 2 billion people projected to join us on Earth by 2050, farmers need to produce far more calories than we do now. The near-universal agreement among experts is that reducing the amount of meat you eat is the best way to reduce environmental harm."

As I've said many times, Korea might be the most difficult place in the world to fully go vegetarian, let alone vegan.  If "meatless" gimmicks can convince folks to cut down on meat, it might be worth a shot.

This Is How I Roll

is it OK that "assholes stranded on cruise ships" is one of my favorite video genres?

— Devin Nunes Ate My Balls (@wetcasements) March 24, 2019

Godspeed, Ichiro

Ichiro Suzuki has retired.

As somebody who grew up loving baseball, then falling out of it, then coming back to it (even as a god forsaken Orioles fan!) this was one of those great moments -- in Tokyo, no less.

I'm a nostalgic jerk, basically.

(Sweet Jeebus It's Almost) 2020

I guess I've been negligent in expressing a strong opinion as to who I want to win the Dem nomination for 2020.  I guess I'm still a bit shell-shocked that it's 2019 already.  I guess I'm still a bit poleaxed the Orange Pussy-Grabber actually is in charge, as long as we're being honest.  Two years on it all still feels a bit less than real.

But with Biden announcing I guess my opinion is starting to condense around a few candidates, if only a bit.

I like Kamala Harris a lot.  I don't think her "tough on crime" background will hurt her in the long-run.  Obviously, she's got her work cut out for her.  Will she really enjoy getting up at four a.m. in cold, gray weather to visit folks at some variation of Herb and Mathilda's Diabetes Breakfast Buffet in Iowa and New Hampshire for months on end?  I honestly hope so, because her smarts and temperament are really appealing.  Also, she went to Howard so I have to respect her D.C. (not Washington, D.C.) credentials.

I also really like Elizabeth Warren.  However, let's face it -- thoughtful, fact-based policy platforms do not win elections in America.  And the more you think they do, the more disappointed you'll be to find that American politics are about 95% post-factual now.  And frankly, as fucking stupid and racist as the whole "Pocohontas" thing is, given America's stupid and racist mainstream media it will be enough to sink her.

Beto?  Loved his run in Texas.  Have slowly realized he isn't ready for prime time, at least on a national level.  Everything he did against Cruz was fresh and exciting.  Everything he's done since?  The opposite.  And secretly a bit of a douchey bro at heart?

Klobuchar and Gillibrand?  Is it unfair that I get them a bit confused sometimes? I'll admit, the Klobuchar treatment-of-staffer thing was hardly a boost to my feelings about her.  But it's been a few weeks now -- neither has really set themselves apart from the pack.

Biden?  Too old.  And despite all of the strange "Obama's white trash side-kick" love that I never understood, a vote for him is basically denying that Trump ever happened, that we can just vote for Uncle Joe and "go back" to the good times.  He embodies the pure nostalgia for that 1980's America where Democrats and Republicans could come together at the end of the day as Civilized, Reasonable Opponents.  This 1980's never existed, of course.  It's because guys like Biden ignored the obvious batshit insanity of Movement Conservatism in that decade in order to maintain "decorum" and "civility" with Republican assholes that we're all so very fucked today.

Cory Booker?  Rahm Emanuel with more Dad jokes.  However, unlike candidates I haven't mentioned, I'm open to being moved by one or two debate performances.

That's it.  (Obviously, that's not it.)  But beyond that I can't be bothered.  Jay Inslee is great, but even he's pretty much admitted he's running to bring more attention to global warming (and that's fine).

While enthusiasm and participation are hallmarks of a healthy American democracy, I'm already worried that we (speaking as a life-long Democrat) are just going to make this too easy for Trumpolini to ride historical precedent as an incumbent to victory.  Once somebody emerges as the eventual winner (not guaranteed!) I wonder how much wind will be at his or her sails.  If 2016 is any indication, certain hopefuls will not go gentle into that good night due to their innate and unearned sense of entitlement, especially if its a woman dealing with bitter (and more likely older and whiter) men.

Oh, and I almost forget -- Bernie?  Too old.  Also, not a Democrat.  Also, if Trump should release his taxes so should he.

New Semester Update!

Pavement, "Kennel District"

 A Spiral Stairs track that rivals second-tier Malkmus, IMO.  (Meant as a compliment, I swear!)

Three weeks into the semester and explosive vomiting aside, things are OK.  I am struggling a bit with the AV setup in one of my classrooms, because the speakers for my CD material and video aren't working.

"But that room is set up for AV, so the speakers are working" says the department secretary.

Never change, South Korea.

T. M. I.

Last night I managed to catch a bit of food poison (from a chicken sandwich, I believe) and suddenly woke up at seven a.m. and proceeded to vomit like a fountain.

It's the second time in ten years I've caught a bug here, and I've basically been a zombie all day.

And I just did a full round of laundry over the weekend, natch.

Fail Spawn

I can't even with this story:

"U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling called the parents charged in the case 'a catalog of wealth and privilege.' The schemes involved paying better students to take the SAT or ACT on the rich kids’ behalf, straight-up changing answers on the tests after the kids took them, having therapists help them get extra time on their exams, and even bribing university athletics’ coaches to pretend the students were athletic recruits. Many of the students were unaware their parents were cheating on the tests for them, the FBI said. The payments were made through a non-profit and disguised as charitable donations. According to the FBI, some parents paid up to $6.5 million for 'guaranteed admission' to colleges.

What this case shows us is how different these things are for the rich. Regular people see college as their chance of having a decent career and earning enough money, even with the burden of student loans, to survive in a society where the minimum wage won’t cover the rent anywhere—as well as, you know, a place to learn things about the world. Regular people have to work very hard to get into college and to pay for it, often for the rest of their lives. Rich people, on the other hand, see college as yet another way to pay their way into privilege—the privilege of having been to a good school, because people still insist on assuming you’re smart if you went to an elite school."

First off, half a mil to get into USC?  A fine school, no doubt, but isn't that approaching Harvard-Kushner level bribe money?

Second, I had tons of advantages for getting into college that most kids don't have.  I went to a private high school, I took a fancy-schmancy SAT prep course, I had parents that were actively invested in my doing well academically.

But at no point did it occur to any of us that I wouldn't actually have to sit the damn test myself and take some AP tests and do all the tedious paperwork and write essays and all that.

According to the story, one of these Fail Spawn couldn't even fill out an application form:

"We also have fake rowers, as well as a high school student who couldn’t fill out her own application."

But truly, the greatest threat to America these days is a freshman congresswoman suggesting that Capitalism isn't working out so well for about 85 percent of the world who can't bribe their way into elite colleges.

2019

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"what most of us cannot speak of"

"To say, by the same token, that all three inhabit the same 'historical' field -- or, even, that they generate it -- is to hypostatize 'History' out of our very ignorance of the relations between the 'experiences' that produced it.  For 'History' is what we create by scratching the annoyance, the irritation of writing, with its aspirations to logic and order, on memory's uneasy and uncertain discontinuities.

Unlike the sculpture game, then, there is more than one game to play here: psychology, history, art -- which is to say, while 'story' is what we can create, what we can recount, what we can recall, 'History' (as one evokes it in biography, in autobiography) is what most of us do not remember, what most of us cannot speak of."

--Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water

Air Raid

South Korea has been blindsided by fine-particle dust air pollution, just in time for the annual spring siege of "Yellow Dust."  Shoppers are responding:

"For the last few weeks, Korea has been under siege by the worst fine dust the country has ever seen, not only in terms of severity but also longevity. In some regions like Gwangju and South Jeolla, a government-issued fine dust warning lasted eight days, the longest since the system was implemented in 2015.

While periods of acute pollution have always affected the market - generally by boosting sales of masks and air purifiers - this year things got so bad that the impact was much broader, changing consumer behavior and prompting the launch of new products and services as desperate Koreans look for ways to combat the fine dust."

Daegu has been spared for the most part, but friends of mine in Seoul are reporting that things are pretty awful.

Captain Marvel Spoilerless Review!

I liked it.  Solid B+.

By design, it's connecting the dots between a number of other MCU films and so it struggles a bit to be its own thing.

Brie Larson is OK.  Early on she's given some pretty clunky lines that she can't really elevate.

And not only is it Captain Marvel's origin story, but also Nick Fury's.  If you like Sam Jackson chewing scenery (as I do), you'll be a happy fanboy/girl.

"dumb, poisonous"

I'm really tired of the whole "if you criticize Israeli government or military you must hate all Jews" thing.

It's such a transparently dumb, poisonous argument, yet so many "serious" politicians and pundits (even liberal ones!) still fall for it.

Make it fucking stop.

— James, Problematic Uncle of Dragons (@wetcasements) March 7, 2019

"McDonald’s Was Our Lifeboat"

An Uong's family made the immigrant journey from Vietnam to Glendale, California and writes a touchingly complicated love letter to, of all places, McDonald's:

"At home, our family of four gathered around the coffee table as I unpacked the sandwiches one at a time. I went for the McChickens, preferring breaded chicken breast to shrunken beef patty. Peeling apart the damp wrapper revealed a toasted bun, lightly peppered chicken, shredded lettuce, and mayo — a combination that still tugs at my appetite today. My dad’s favorite was the cheeseburger, though he scraped off each pickle slice before taking a bite. By the end of our McDonald’s meals, there was always a small mound of pickles in front of him. My mom and brother were less picky, eating both without complaints. We never ordered sodas at McDonald’s, because according to my parents, why spend more when the 99 Cents Only Store sold 2-liter bottles for less? Plus, McDonald’s didn’t serve our favorite, orange Crush.

The Dollar Menu was a tradition most Sundays, especially when our supply of Vietnamese ingredients was low and we were still planning our next bus trip to Chinatown. We went once a month with our metal cart in tow, and since no one in the family knew how to drive (no one does still), the 20-minute trip turned into an hourlong journey from our corner of the San Fernando Valley toward Downtown Los Angeles, where Chinatown awaited us with more familiar grocery stores and food stands. My family settled in Glendale when I was 4 and Kenny still hadn’t been born, and a part of me has always wondered how our lives might have been different if we had moved to Chinatown after arriving in America."

Questions of what makes one type of food more "authentic" than another are always loaded, so I love how this story complicates the idea that trashy American fast food can't sometimes become, in fact, its own kind of a much needed cultural embrace.  Read the whole thing, of course.

Maybe You Can Fight City Hall? No. Probably Not.

South Korea is no stranger to arguments over gentrification, but the latest one is particularly stark:

"These shops are a key part of Seoul’s healthy functioning, past and present, says Park Eun-seon, urban activist and founder of the collective Listen to the City.

'This area is now the oldest area in Seoul. Everything else is postwar. Here we have some originals. The people worked here for a long time, making their own history – and now the government wants to make it offices and apartments. Ridiculous.'

She points out that the government has past form in demolishing first and asking questions later. In 2003, when the Cheonggyecheon stream was originally developed, more than 30,000 street vendors were moved out after an elevated highway was demolished to restore the original river underneath. The waterway is now a favourite socialising spot for Seoulites, and its success helped propel then-mayor Lee Myung-bak to the presidency."

The possibility of violence is far from zero:

"There are no signs of violence in the current dispute, nor any suggestion that Hanho Construction was involved in any past confrontations, but the Korea Times has reported that the firm has sent aggressive letters to shop owners, bypassing their official tenants’ association. Many of the letters asked for double rent, or claimed damages of up to 500m won (£343,000) for unspecified obstruction, the newspaper said."

I'd only add, anecdotally, that South Korea landlords can be just as terrible as American ones.