Category: Random Stuff

One Korean researcher thinks so:

In the future, people could be shopping for masks at electronics retailers instead of at pharmacies. Those masks would be capable of monitoring wearers’ breathing patterns, captured particles and gas, and be able to connect with other devices like smartphones. 

This is not just a dream for Beelee Chua, a professor at the electric engineering school of Korea University. 

In 2018, professor Chua’s research team, in collaboration with Ewha Womans University, developed a micro ionizer-based mask that would offer permanent protection and easier breathing. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

The American left’s response to the Justice Department condemning racial profiling against Asian-Americans and whites at Yale, is the typical check your white privilege and your a racist response:

The Justice Department’s latest accusation that Yale University discriminated against Asian American and white students is an attempt to pit marginalized students against each other, using Asian Americans as the conduit, experts say.

Several Asian American activists and scholars criticized the DOJ’s letter sent to the Ivy League institution on Thursday, in which the feds claimed the school “rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race, whom it otherwise would admit.” Critics say that in lumping white students with those of Asian descent, the administration is using Asian Americans as a pawn to dismantle affirmative action.

“This announcement is pure politics — a signal once again that the Trump administration will take extraordinary steps to protect white privilege and resort to unfounded racial attacks, right on the heels of Kamala Harris, a Black and Asian American woman, joining the top of the Democratic ticket,” Anurima Bhargava, who served as chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division at DOJ during the Obama administration.

NBC News

You can read more at the link, but is there a more overused word than “racist” right now?

Yet despite all the discrimination Asian-Americans have faced in the past and even now by affirmative action policies in colleges, they have still been able to have by far the highest per capita household income of any race, even higher than whites.

The economic success Asian-Americans have had is why many are upset about being discriminated against at elite colleges because of their race.

Maybe I missed it, but when was vandalism ever legalized?:

President Donald Trump this week threatened a decade of jail time for protesters defacing and toppling statues on federal lands, citing a little known law designed to punish vandalism at American veteran cemeteries.

On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that he had authorized federal officials to “arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.”

But no presidential authorization is necessary.

Military Times

You can read more at the link, but if you haven’t heard the BLM folks are now tearing down statues honoring abolitionists.

On PBS Frontline this week there is a really good show about the United States’ coronavirus response. Part of the show compares the U.S. to what South Korea did. ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha was heavily featured in the show.

The major difference pointed out which has been discussed before on this blog is how quickly South Korea was able to ramp up the private industry to produce test kits. They did this in a week. The CDC in the United States decided to create their own test kits which were tainted due to poor manufacturing and caused a month long delay in ramping up testing, which it eventually turned to private industry to augment.

You can watch, The Virus: What Went Wrong at the link.

All the looting going on is horrible for small business owners to include many Korean-Americans:

Nights are long these days for many Koreans in every corner of the U.S.

Rioting and looting have become nightly events in major cities and small towns alike, and Korean mom-and-pop stores are just some of the countless businesses that continue to get ransacked, robbed and destroyed by angry mobs all across the nation.

“This is just like the LA riots all over again,” said Nancy Kim, 44, who owns a clothing shop near Koreatown in Los Angeles. “I was only 16 when the riots happened here, but I still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrifying scenes. I can’t believe almost 30 years later, we’re doing this all over again.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the Joong Ang Ilbo the California National Guard has deployed to Koreatown which has prevented it from being attacked like they were back in 1992. Those riots led to the “Rooftop Koreans” meme.