Daegu "Spring"

Dear Allah kill me now....

Mueller Time

Initial Muller Report was a complex thing -- required complex, nuanced reading to understand he was actively suggesting paths to impeachment re: obstruction.

Non-FOX News US press corpse: "WHELP, THIS BARR GUY SEEMS LIKE AN HONEST DEALER HE SAYS NOTHING HAPPENED LET'S GO HOME."

— Winterfell Barista James (@wetcasements) May 30, 2019

Delightin' And Instructin' Part Infinity

When I taught as a graduate student and then two years as a high school teacher in America, Spring Fever was definitely a thing.  It's a thing here in South Korea as well, albeit P.D.A. is a bit more restricted here.

Anyhow, a few days ago I had to stop class and remind a couple sitting in the front row of my class that this wasn't a Love Motel.  His hand was basically on top of her (very short) skirt.

They were both mortified.  Maybe I should have done more.  Maybe I should have done less.

Teaching is weird sometimes.

Dying On Everest Is Not A Tragedy, It's A Preventable Mistake

Another spring, another literal and figurative shit-show on Everest:

"Christopher John Kulish, 61, scaled the 29,035ft peak from the normal South-East Ridge route in the morning but died suddenly at South Col after descending from the summit, said Mira Acharya, a Nepal tourism department official.

The authorities did not say where he was from in the US. The cause of his death was unclear.

Most deaths on Everest this year have been attributed to exhaustion and tiredness, exacerbated because a crowded route to and from the summit has led to delays. The short climbing season ends this month."

Ban anything and everything having to do with scaling Everest.

"flygskam"

The Earth is at a tipping point, and half-measures might not be enough.  So, would you be willing to join the growing ranks of those who eschew flying?  To wit:

"Paul Chatterton, a professor of urban futures at the University of Leeds, also hasn’t flown since 2004. 'I think every academic has to justify why they are flying to that particular "must-go" conference. If we have something really important to say, say it in a different way.' He travels to European conferences by train. 'One of the privileges of being a middle-income professional – and this is a direct plea to other middle-income professionals – is that you can negotiate with your boss and you have a bit more money to get the train. I’m not talking about people who can’t afford to do that, because I know trains are more expensive.'

As for Chatterton’s no-fly family holidays, the best ones have been taking the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam and cycling around the Netherlands. 'You travel light, you make it an adventure with your kids,' he says. 'Who wants to sit in a departure lounge? You get the excitement of travelling through places, figuring out what the next journey is. I think we have to get back into the idea that travelling is special; it’s a privilege.'”

I'd be happy to do this if I lived in Europe.  Here in South Korea, it's incredibly easy to get anywhere with a bus or train as well.  But thinking about moving back to America, this would be really tough in such a de-centralized country.

Then again, I'm still amazed that more conferences and meetings can't take place through remote measures like Skype.  Then again, I've always been more of a "send an e-mail" guy than a TED Talk one.

"no one is sure exactly how LSD ended up on the Buchla Model 100 at Cal State"

This hits the sweet spot for my music, obscure music gear, and former psychedelic drug-use interests:

"According to a report by San Francisco KPIX 5, Curtis opened a red-paneled module on the Buchla, at which point he saw 'a crust or a crystalline residue on it.' Curtis sprayed a cleaning solvent on the area and attempted to dislodge the crystal with his finger. After 45 minutes, Curtis was overcome with a strange tingling sensation, followed by a nine-hour trip.

The substance found on the instrument was later tested and identified as LSD. An anonymous LSD researcher and expert later confirmed to KPIX that the drug can remain potent for decades if stored in a cool, dark place, and that it is possible to ingest LSD through the skin.

The instrument’s inventor—the late Don Buchla of Berkeley—was heavily enmeshed in 1960s counterculture; in 1966, his synthesizers found their way onto a school bus purchased by acid advocate Ken Kesey and his followers. Buchla was also a friend of Owsley Stanley, the Grateful Dead’s sound engineer, and manufacturer of a highly potent strain of LSD. Despite the connections between Buchla and acid, however, no one is sure exactly how LSD ended up on the Buchla Model 100 at Cal State."

/gets up, raises lit lighter, falls down and passes out.

More on Don Buchla.

Throwing Milkshakes At Fascists Is The New Punching Nazis In The Face (And Both Are The Right Thing To Do)

We live in an era where White Supremacists routinely walk into churches, synagogues, and mosques and commit mass murder, sometimes in the name of Trump.

But god forbid somebody throws a milkshake and ruins the jacket of a known fascist:

"What these critiques misunderstand is why milkshaking is so potent against Farage and his brethren: It humiliates them. Nothing animates the far right or shapes its worldview quite so much as the desire to humiliate others—and the fear of being humiliated themselves. It’s why alt-right trolls, projecting their own sexual insecurities, enjoy calling their opponents 'cucks.' It’s why they rally around blustery authoritarian figures like Donald Trump who cast themselves as beyond embarrassment, shame, or ridicule. They brandish humiliation like a weapon while craving release from it.

Getting doused in a milkshake robs far-right figures of the air of chauvinistic invulnerability that they spend so much time cultivating. They hunger to be taken seriously despite their racist views. They want to be described as dapper, to be interviewed on evening news broadcasts and weekend talk-show panels, and to be seen as a legitimate participant in the democratic process. Most politicians to the left of Enoch Powell would brush off milkshaking as a harmless stunt. For those seeking mainstream legitimacy, it’s another searing reminder that they don’t belong."

Why right-wing appeals for the left to be "polite" to them are ever taken seriously is beyond me.  Relatively speaking, a milkshake to the head is a perfectly measured counter-statement to the violence, implied and actual, of White Supremacism.

Time To Move On With Our Lives

Gay of Thrones, S8E6 (final)

So, the final episode of Game of Thrones was, in my Highly Scientific and Maesterly opinion, O.K.  Just fine.  Just enough.

It's been seven years people.  The idea that we could get the "perfect" G.R.R. Martin ending if only we went another ten episodes / two years is just preposterous.  The HBO writers did a reasonable job with spotty material from an author who is excellent at character and world building, but water-tight plot development and resolution not so much.

The end.

(Would have liked to see Gendry at least take a seat on his own throne at Storm's End.  Or a surprise Nymeria appearance.  But here's me not bitching about it on the internet.)

Priorities

Remember when White Supremacists literally shot up synagogues and mosques and churches and murdered a young woman in Charlottesville, but the real problem is dickless fascists getting hit with milkshakes?

— Winterfell Barista James (@wetcasements) May 21, 2019

The Future Isn't At Home

"Brain Drain" is a phenomenon typically associated with aspirational folks in poor countries moving to richer ones for education and work.  But in 2019, with the fourth largest economy in Asia and an astounding college graduation rate of over 80 percent, many younger South Koreans can only find jobs (encouraged by their own government) outside of the nation:

"While India and other countries face similar challenges in creating jobs for skilled labor, the dominance of family-run conglomerates known as chaebol makes South Korea uniquely vulnerable.

The top 10 conglomerates including world-class brands such as Samsung and Hyundai, make up half of South Korea’s total market capitalization.

But only 13 percent of the country’s workforce is employed by firms with more than 250 employees, the second lowest after Greece in the OECD, and far below the 47 percent in Japan. 'The big companies have mastered a business model to survive without boosting hiring,' as labor costs rise and firing legacy workers remains difficult, said Kim So-young, an economics professor at Seoul National University.'"

It doesn't help matters that South Korea is also in the middle of an ongoing demographic crisis due to a lack of babies being born.  Every young person who moves abroad is likely to stay abroad, and more than likely to start a family away from Korea.

"not a moment to mince words"

Laurie Penny brings the fire here -- "The Criminalization of Women's Bodies Is All About Conservative Male Power":

"It’s time to be completely clear. Forcing a woman to give birth against her will is morally equivalent to rape. It’s exactly the same logic of entitlement and abuse: Men get to control women’s bodies. Female sexual agency must be punished. Women’s consent does not matter.

This is not a moment to mince words. This is a moment for moral clarity. Women’s personhood is not conditional. Women’s sexuality is not shameful. The only shameful thing, the only thing that no citizen who believes even fractionally in freedom should tolerate, is a world in which women are treated like things."

In growing parts of America, rapists are now literally less culpable than the women they rape and the doctors who treat them.

Pose

Daegu, South Korea.

"beer soup was common"

One copacetic thing about being a long-term expat in South Korea, or Asia, is that since I'm not into Big Western Breakfasts I never really encounter them unless I'm staying in a hotel.  What I'm trying to say is, American Breakfast is elitist bullshit:

"American breakfast begins in Europe, which provided the food norms imported by early colonizers. There, the day’s first meal had emerged from centuries of prohibition under the Catholic Church. 'There was a period of time in England and western Europe where eating breakfast was sort of tied to gluttony,' says Heather Arndt Anderson, the author of Breakfast: A History. That all changed with the Protestant Reformation, when morning sustenance became more broadly permissible, if not all that exciting, or even distinct from everything else people ate. Lack of refrigeration meant the meal was usually sour and tepid. In Germany, beer soup was common.

In early America, breakfast remained a matter of convenience for most people: bread; preserved meats; repurposed leftovers; and things, like eggs, that were easy to prepare and regularly available to rural families, Arndt Anderson says.

According to Krishnendu Ray, a professor of food studies at New York University, that’s consistent with how much of the world still approaches the day’s first meal. 'Poorer people everywhere, especially in places like India and China, eat the same kind of food for meal after meal,' he says. 'The strict differentiation of meals is partly an American thing, but partly a thing of upward mobility.' Breakfast food, as a concept, is a luxury. As colonial America developed into a more robust culture with distinct class markers, breakfast started to change with it."

I do miss blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes on very rare occasions.  I'm not a monster.

Since Nobody Asked Me (Game of Thrones Spoilers!)

I was fine with the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones going full 9/11-Auschwitz-The Day After via Targaryen meltdown.  It was clunky though, and it feels like the show-runners have basically gotten lazier as they approach the end.  (My free advice to Daenarys -- attack the damn city at night when you can't be targeted.)

A lot of internet criticism runs along the lines of "While the direction / spectacle is excellently done, the writing falls flat."  And I'd pretty much agree.  I find myself just kind of wanting this thing to end, unfulfilled prophecies be damned.

This is hardly the stuff of high-praise, but suffice it to say this was a series that matched Martin's strengths -- amazing characters and world building, with an audacious willingness to sacrifice heroes when called for.

Consistently solid story-telling with consequences that matter, beyond the random death of major characters?  Not so much!

"If Heaven's really coming back / I hope it has a heart attack"

Jason Molina, "Just Be Simple" live

I just finished the Jason Molina biography Riding With The Ghost by Erin Osmon.  At just over 200 pages, it still felt "weighty" enough and really excels during the first half of the book -- his childhood and college years at Oberlin, and his early musical triumphs.

Through no real fault of the author, things get hazier as we approach the inevitable end due to alcoholism.  He lived in London with his wife for years, and that part of his life coincides with his descent into addiction.  So it makes perfect sense that the details start to dissolve, and Osmon does an admirable job of trying to piece the narrative together through the memories of friends.

Highly recommended, with some great storytelling regarding the Oberlin music scene of the 90s and basically the history of the Secretly Canadian label.

Not Looking, Thank You Very Much

It's no secret that South Korea is in the midst of a crushing demographic crisis, as fewer and fewer couples choose to have babies.  Now, many young South Koreans aren't even interested in dating:

"Money isn't the only issue facing students on Bae's course. They often cite news stories about sex crimes, voyeurism and gender discrimination, all of which have become major societal issues in South Korea.

There were 32,000 cases of sexual violence reported to police in 2017, compared to 16,000 in 2008, according to data from the National Police Agency.

Among these, partner violence has soared sharply. Between 2016 and 2018, the number of cases in which a person was assaulted by a romantic partner or date rose from 9,000 to almost 19,000.

College student Lee Ji-su, 21, said she was deterred from dating when a friend was assaulted by her boyfriend after she broke up with him. Lee said the friend was terrified because the man kept showing up at her home even after their relationship ended."

Dating is bullshit in any country -- the desperate act of trying to convince somebody you're worth their time and attention.  Throw in a slow economy, a highly traditional culture that is uncomfortable separating dating from sex from marriage from having kids, and a healthy dose of rape culture, and this is what you get.

"not according to their actions, which are frequently quite bad, but by their standing"

Alex Pareene wins the internets for this week, at least:

"What made all this the stuff of Dantean hyperbole was the simple, self-evident truth that Kavanaugh was 'a good kid.' Good Kids are determined to be good not according to their actions, which are frequently quite bad, but by their standing. On this status-driven reckoning of the natural order of things, the worst thing imaginable is for a good kid to be denied future opportunities to wield power.

Even Senator Ben Sasse, a professional critic of the president’s temperament with a side-hustle as an author of books about how to raise your children well, took to the Senate floor to make a grand show of feeling bad about how the president spoke about the Kavanaugh accusations, and then voted for Kavanaugh’s confirmation anyway.

We could have had exactly what Sasse and the rest of the Seriousness Brigade claim to want: an honest discussion of what moral lessons parents and institutions are teaching, or failing to teach, our children. Instead we had a prolonged national meltdown on behalf of all the American teens who, because of the excesses of #MeToo, may yet miss out on the pleasures of behaving like the protagonists of Porky’s."

In some ways the era of Trumpolini really is incredibly easy to understand -- the 2020 election will find the American people rejecting or accepting, probably forever, the hegemony of White Male Identity Politics.

This is only one great point among many, so read the whole thing.

Spring, Summer

Airy, "The Way To Vanish"

Kind of abstract Grouper-type thing.

It's still a bit early but I'm thinking about my summer vacation plans.  I'll definitely be going to the DC area to see my sister but it's possible I won't even bother with Seattle and my Dad this year.  If I do go it'll be for a few days rather than the usual week / week-and-a-half.

Long-story short, as I've lamented before being a FOX News Orphan is a Real Thing.  It's not a joke -- the network has literally destroyed relationships and if you don't believe me, ask my sister.

My Highly Unscientific List of Three Things I Hate Teaching In English

1)  Articles (Korean doesn't have them.)

2)  Past tense  (English has way too many irregular verbs, meaning you basically have to memorize the past tense for hundreds of different words.)

3)  Reported Speech  (You wouldn't think this is a tough one but man, 45 minutes into a "basic" RS lesson and I'm ready to quit.)

Game of Thrones Is Almost Ovah! (Spoilers!)

I'm on the record as believing that the HBO writers are generally better story-tellers than George Martin but word to The Mother, this final season is really trying my patience.

I have read the books, and I think Martin's strengths are character creation and world building.  And up until recently I was pretty content to let two TV "pros" take the raw materials and turn them into good TV product via cutting the fat and actually making things happen.  (Lest we forget, the last two novels so far have been so fucking slow, with Daenarys basically "trapped" in the East for no good reason other than Martin doesn't know what to do wither her.)

I think the worst crimes though are setting up things for payoffs that never come.  As much as I love Arya's character, it seems like she pretty much proved there were much easier, much better ways to deal with he Night King rather than losing huge swathes of your armies.  (Will Bran even appear in the last two episodes?)

But maybe I was wrong.  Maybe there just wasn't enough time to sufficiently send off each of the main characters in the ways they deserved, and the HBO team was willing to settle for very safe, dishwater endings that don't really solve any of the larger, more historical mysteries of the show.

And damn if Missandei wasn't pretty much thrown away, and Brienne will probably be sitting out the battle of King's Landing.

Daegu F.C.

When I came to Daegu I was aware that their baseball club, the Samsung Lions, were one of the better teams in the country while the soccer club, Daegu F.C., was something of a joke.  Times have changed though -- while the Lions are now basement dwellers, the soccer team (in blue) now plays in the top tier and is challenging for a championship this year.

This was my first match in the new downtown stadium as opposed to the World Cup stadium pretty far outside of town (the Usain Bolt one, as I like to call it).

Daegu won over Sangju Sangmu 1-0 on a late goal.

Interestingly, this new stadium was built on top of the old Daegu baseball stadium.  Why?  Who knows.

Tis The Season

I love Fall in Korea, but Spring is a close second.

Galmegi Brewing is based in Busan as South Korea goes through a bit of a micro-brewing explosion.  Here's the balcony at ETOH's, my preferred spot for import beers.

This is a very interesting yuzu-infused choice.

This came at the end of a long day teaching and doing some errands in lurvely downtown Daegu.  (There food is quite good as well.)

Sayin' No To Joe

Alex Pareene on the ongoing Democratic primary race -- "Democrats Have Created An 'Electability' Monster":

"Watching Joe Biden, a man who was already too out-of-step with the party and the country to win the nomination 12 years ago, claim the 'electability' mantle only strengthens that feeling. No one really wants President Biden. It’s just that the 'better things aren’t possible' caucus accidentally managed to convince some large portion of the Democratic electorate that they must hold their noses and vote for actively worse things.

Expecting voters to behave like pundits—asking people to vote for what expensive consultants and Sunday show guests imagine people like them might want instead of what they actually want—would be perverse even if it worked. But unless and until the Democratic electorate can be given license to support what it supports, each failure of the 'electability' paradigm will only be taken as proof of the need to retreat further into learned helplessness.

If you’re not that excited to vote for Joe Biden, I promise you, your neighbor isn’t, either."

Joe is way too old and out of touch with the actual heart of the Democratic base -- non-white working class folks.

And guess what?  So is Bernie.