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.