Category: Uncategorized

I have to give a hat tip to one of my commenters for tipping me off to the latest Daniel Hong article. The Korea Times will just publish anything now a days. Many of you may remember Mr. Hong from my posting a couple of weeks ago. In the latest Daniel Hong article he actually admits to the charge of being a plagarist that was actually uncovered by the blogosphere, but downs plays it by saying it is only a minor charge:

Before I offer my thought on racism, however, let me comment en passant on the minor charge against me being a plagiarist.

Since when is plagarism a minor charge? I seen people get kicked out of college for plagarism and people fired from newspapers for plagarism. The funniest part of his defense for plagarism is that he tries to justify it by using fancy words and quotes from not to famous people:

I may have followed too closely after the French writer Anatole France who quipped, “When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.’’ Before turning to racism, I just wish readers to compare the following quotes to see if any insight you can draw from them. “Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research.’’ (Wilson Mizner, American writer) “To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism _ to steal from many is research.’’ (Steven Wright, Canadian comedian) “Nothing is said which has not been said before.’’ (Terrence, Roman writer of comedies)

His defense of racism is just as humorous. He tries to make the case he is not a racist by using big words and quotes again to I guess to demonstrate to people he is to smart to be a racist. The first thing he quotes is a United Nations definition of racism:

“In this Convention, the term `racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.’’ (Part I, Article 1)

I don’t know about you but I’m a product of the American public educational system and tend to understand plain simple English instead of the fancy diplomatic speak above. So I turned to Dictionary.com for the definition of racism. Here it is:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Now this is something that is easy to understand. Let’s compare this definition with what is easily the most inflammatory portion of Daniel Hong’s original article.

Later in the discussion session after her lecture, I raised several questions: “Who are those Western men or Americans chasing after Asian female? Aren’t they what the Southern Californians would call, UCLA (Ugly Caucasians Living with Asians)? Aren’t they at the bottom of the Darwin’s food chain that they couldn’t get what they want in their own land because of their low social status and therefore only option left for them is to chase after those Asians?

The UCLA comment though insensitive wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t follow it with the bottom of the food chain comment. Using my Dictionary.com definition I definitely believe this guy has let his anger make him a racist because his comments are definitely discrimatory and prejudice based on race. However, it is not only discriminatory against white men but also Asian women. If these so called UCLA’s are at the bottom of the food chain than that means Asian females must be at the bottom of the food chain too, to want to date them. If Mr. Hong thinks that Asian women are at the bottom of the food chain that may explain why he can’t get a date and all these UCLAs out there can.

Mr. Hong goes on to try to draw parrallels with the Bill Cosby case. At least he quoted somebody everyone knows. Anyway he then added this passage I got a good laugh from:

In any debate, when the opponent sees the other point is rather logical and reasonable and thus becomes too strong to defeat, they will seek to attack the character of the opponent, thinking that the exposure will cause the reader not to listen to what the opponent has to say. Thus calling me as racist without any substantial evidence becomes the glib and thus liable to be called as a propagandistic pitch to shape the readers? opinion.

Mr. Hong thinks there is no evidence to call him a racist. He should heed his own words. He had no problem labeling white males with his “UCLA” and “bottom of the food chain” comments without any evidence which he even admits to not having in the article.

I only have his own words to use to judge his character which I feel definitely could lead one to suspect he has racist thoughts towards white males. If he apologized for the inflammatory comments that would be one thing, but he actually seems proud of them and that is why I still feel he is a racist.

He concludes his article with more fancy words from not so famous people and then drops this bomb here:

But my article to report the findings that there exist Asian female stereotypes within the Western perspectives can?t be disposed as racist?s campaign to attack Western men. Who then becomes a real racist here? You know better than I do since I can?t read your crystal ball.

Of course there are stereotypes about Asian women just like there are stereotypes about White Males and everyone else out there. However, Mr. Hong article only reinforces the negative stereotype of Asian females he thinks he is helping. If Mr. Hong wants to complain about stereotypes I got a stereotype for him. Not only am I an American but I’m a US soldier in Korea of top of it. Think how many stereotypes about me Korean people have when they first meet me that I have to over come. I don’t get all pissed off and bitter. A good first impression goes along way to over coming a bad stereotype. Mr. Hong has a lot to learn about good first impressions after reading his article.

Then the last snipe about people accusing him of being racist are the real racists contradicts the earlier part of his article that states that people label others as being racist to cause other people to not listen to what their opponents have to say. I know one thing, I’m done listening to what Daniel Hong has to say.

UPDATE:

Go over to the Asia Pages where Jodi has got more on the latest Daniel Hong article. Ms. Prasso has also sent out an e-mail responding to Daniel Hong’s quotes from her and she pretty much says she was misquoted by Mr. Hong probably due to language difficulties.

Assuming she was misquoted by Mr. Hong I apologize to Ms. Prasso for calling her a racist in my earlier post. Make sure to check out the Asia Pages for the latest on this issue. She has even offered Mr. Hong a chance to guest blog on her site. I know I said that I was done listening to what Daniel Hong has to say, but I would love to see a debate between Mr. Hong and Jodi.

Can someone tell me what is being celebrated at this ceremony celebrating five years since the 2000 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang? Are they celebrating the governmental corruption under former President Kim Dae Jung that passed the millions of dollars to Kim Jong Il to allow the summit? The Korea Times article didn’t say much besides the delegation has been reduced which of course America was blamed for and that Unification Minister Chung Dong-young would lead the delegation. I can’t think of a better person to kiss Kim Jong Il’s butt for three days.

Former US Army deserter Charles Jenkins may decide to visit the US with his family to visit his 91 year old mother.

Jenkins has asked to travel to the United States to see his 91-year-old mother who lives in a nursing home in North Carolina, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The Kyodo news agency says Jenkins may head to the United States as soon as Tuesday next week.

North Korea and Japan played each other in a World Cup qualifying game in Bangkok, Thailand last night. What was unusual about this game is the fact that no fans were allowed to attend due to North Korean fan violence during a match against Iran..

In a rare move, the World Cup governing body FIFA moved the game from Pyongyang to Bangkok to punish North Korea after unruly crowd behavior during the country’s game against Iran in Pyongyang in March.

Nearly 500 members of the Japanese press and thousands of supporters are expected to watch the match from outside and in nearby hotels.

Japan defeated North Korea 2-0 to qualify for the World Cup.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) – Japan defeated North Korea 2-0 at Bangkok on Wednesday to qualify for next year’s soccer World Cup.

Late goals by Atsushi Yanagisawa in the 73rd minute and substitute Masashi Oguro in the 88th minute gave Japan the win and made it the first team to join host Germany at the 2006 finals.

Colorado Rockies pitcher Byung-hyun Kim continues to display why he is the perfect Rockies pitcher. Kim has actually improved his ERA since my last posting from 9.64 to a for him a good 6.38. Don’t go write his name on your All-Star ballot yet. He also has an 0-5 record.

Here is a further update on the fall out from the Daniel Hong article in the Korea Times. I orignially posted about this article a couple weeks ago and I provided an additional update last week.

Today the Korea Times had an opinion piece criticizing the Daniel Hong article. The op-ed is well written and makes many of the points about Daniel Hong that was exposed through the blogosphere. Here is a quick snippet:

So, now we are left with some questions: Did this alleged conversation with Prasso actually occur? How can we trust the words of an author who claims another’s words as his own? We might be suspicious that such a person might claim a conversation that never happened as well. Perhaps Ms. Prasso will have chance to read this and comment on the veracity of the author’s use of her name and words. Prasso and Hong both make use of stereotypes as the basis for their writing. Prasso discusses the stereotypes that Westerners have of Asians and some of the problems associated with those stereotypes.Hong, however, simply borrows (scratch that, steals) Prasso’s views in order to attack a subset of westerners for which he has obvious distain. The difference here is that the former is provocative and compelling for the intelligent reader and the later is racist and offensive.

It would be interesting to hear from Ms. Prasso her self on this topic because we have already read enough from Daniel Hong. I doubt we will be reading anything from him in the future now that he has been exposed as a plagarist. Then again this is the Korea Times were talking about so who knows.

A civic group (korean media code word for anti-American group) has been allowed access to the Korean police investigation into the accident that killed the two middle school girls three years ago. I’m sure they will twist the facts of this case for their own purposes to try and build up public outrage before the June 13th anniversary of the accident.

The twisting of the truth in this case is really amazing. I have had KATUSAs tell me they thought before working with US soldiers that the US soldiers ground guided the tracked vehicle back and forth over the girls bodies because a ROK Army tank commander said so on the news. They believed the US soldiers were all laughing about it and they got in a fight with ROK soldiers at the scene over it. This is just a quick sample of the propaganda and lies put out there to smear the US Army. So don’t expect anything truthful to come out of whatever report this “civic group” puts out this week.

Also here is something I heard through the grapevine. We’ll see on the 13th if it is true or not. You will not see the parents of the two girls killed in the accident at any of the protests. They were contacted by the “civic groups” and they told the civic groups that they wanted them to quit taking advantage of this tragedy for their own gain and would not participate. If true I bet the Korean media won’t report it.

Yahoo News is reporting a sharp increase in the number of AIDS cases in Japan.

A rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use. Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll.

The overall reported total of infections isn’t to bad but there is fears that the real number is much higher:

The official toll of 10,070 HIV/AIDS sufferers in a nation of 127 million people pales next to some countries. Even if the actual figure is closer to 40,000, that would mean roughly 1 in 3,000 are infected, compared to about 1 in 100 in Thailand or 1 in 1,500 in China, according to estimates by UNAIDS, the U.N. body waging the global war on AIDS.

But many in Japan are alarmed at the dangerous mixture of chronic underreporting of cases, a sexually freewheeling youth culture that’s less inclined to use condoms or other protection, and the powerful social stigma of a sexually transmitted disease. Satoshi Kimura, head of the AIDS Clinical Center at the Tokyo-based International Medical Center, estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 people in Japan don’t know they have the virus.

It is the recent increase in cases that is a cause for alarm:

In 2004, a record 1,165 people were reported newly infected, up 14 percent from the previous year — the same percentage growth rate as in AIDS-hit areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS figures.

The virus appears to be spreading the fastest among males under 35. Transmission between gay men accounts for the majority of cases, but the health ministry’s 2004 annual AIDS report notes that infections among heterosexual and homosexual men are increasing at roughly the same rate.

That is really amazing that the increase last year in Japan’s HIV infection rate is similar to sub-Saharan African countries that are being ravaged by the virus.

How does Korea stand in regards to AIDS? Here is a Korea Herald report from last year:

On Oct. 20, health authorities reported that 455 people tested positive for HIV in the first nine months of 2004, raising the number of resident Koreans who have been infected with the virus to 2,994. The new cases represent a 14 percent increase over new cases in the same period the previous year. All 305 cases whose route of transmission has been determined were infected sexually: 51 percent heterosexual vs. 49 percent homosexual, according to the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Since 1985, when the nation’s AIDS epidemic began, 591 people died of AIDS, leaving the number living with HIV-infection at 2,403.

So Korea had a 14 percent increase equal to that of Japan which means Korea’s HIV infection rate is similar to sub-Saharan Africa also. Soldiers and expats you are not safe either:

In addition, 132 foreign residents were found to be HIV-infected: They are not included in the 455 figure. The number of foreign cases in the first nine months of 2004 was more than double the 59 foreign cases found in all of 2003.

Keep that in mind the next time you go to the club.

Apparently computer passwords have benn stolen from MSN accounts across Korea the past few days:

Password-stealing software planted by hackers was active on Microsoft’s popular MSN Web site in South Korea for days before the world’s largest software company learned about the break-in and removed the computer code.

Police investigators and Microsoft specialists are continuing to search for clues to the culprits behind this week’s high-profile computer break-in. More details emerged Friday about the hacking, which targeted subscribers of an online game called “Lineage” that is popular in Asia.

So the hackers stole a bunch of Lineage passwords. In Korea this is cause for a national emergency. I would stay away from internet cafes here for a few days because there are going to be some pissed off people in them when they learn there leveled up character they have spent months working on has been erased or stolen.

Another US Army installation closed down last week in Uijongbu. Camp LaGuardia is located near the center of Uijongbu and it is a good thing that the decision to close the camp was made. When the camp was first built after the Korean War it sat in a small village surrounded by rice paddies. Now the rice paddies have been replaced by high rise buildings and bumper to bumper traffic. All the traffic and pedestrians make it a dangerous location for military traffic.

With the closing of the camp, the city of Uijongbu plans on building a much needed new expressway through the land and also to make a city park there. I hope they do build the park and do not give in to developers who want to make more high rises. The park will really be a bonus for the people who live in the central area of Uijongbu.

In Pusan plans are also being made to shut down Camp Hialeah, which sits in the middle of Pusan. Camp Hialeah needs to be shut down just like Camp LaGuardia did. The surrounding city has expanded so much around the camp that it is just not feasible to have the camp at its present location.

By the end of this year all of 2ID will be consolidated on three camps, Camp Casey/Camp Hovey in Dongducheon and Camp Red Cloud and Camp Stanley in Uijongbu. This is actually a quite a big change considering soldiers used to be spread out on about 20 different camps before the consolidation decision was made. It is a good choice to close the camps due to the changing attitudes and demographics of the surrounding Korean population. The ultimate goal is to have all USFK soldiers consolidated around Osan and Pyongtaek. There is a lot of politics involved in that decision compared to the 2ID base consolidation that could delay the time when that moves actually occurs.

The residents in the surrounding communities especially Dongducheon are not to eager to see the soldiers go due to the economic impact. There have been plenty of past protests from USFK labor unions and more coming up this week. It will be interesting to see how this plays out but the decision to move the bases down south will ultimately have to be made by the Korean government once they sort out the political implications.