i finally watched "v for vendetta" (thoughts on britain and dystopiae)

i held out for years, on principle. i'm not sure why, given that i was never the biggest fan of the original comics (they're lesser alan moore works, and i think he's acknowledged as much, in the past). i guess i just didn't want to see another moore creation tarnished.

anyway, it was fine, i guess. horrible ending. really, ending credits? you had to play "street fighting man," even though you nixed one of the best lines of the book, which is V entering the bishop's room and quoting "sympathy for the devil"? and of course, natalie portman's accent was awful and john hurt sort of phoned it in. blah blah blah, you can read such criticism elsewhere, and elsewhen.


my question was this: why do british dystopias fascinate me so much? i'd say "fascinate us so much," but i'm wary of generalizing. no american dystopia has gripped me in the way that "children of men" or "nineteen eighty four" have. or "brazil" and "blade runner," for that matter—both directed by brits (terry gilliam and ridley scott, respectively).

i've spent all of seven days in the united kingdom, and yet it is the british dystopiae that most fascinate me. i'm tempted to say that the fascination stems from the fact that britain is already like a parallel universe to me—very recognizable, but significantly different. but i don't think that's the whole story. i even love pink floyd's "the wall," with its weeping protagonist begging the audience, "does anybody here rembember vera lynn?"

maybe i'm with slavoj žižek on this one: britain is the only major world power without a written constitution. therefore, the law and freedom are both based on collective memory. in a fallen world, when memory is lost, britain is lost. as an entity, it no longer really exists. it is the purest form of dystopia, because it is the negation of the society as it once was. no more memory, so no more britain. well, the britain that remains is but a rump state, no matter its geographic span. it has quite literally lost its ideological soul. in the US, there will always be documents of the law, even if someone tries to shred them. so perhaps britain is the more pure ground for dystopia.

anyway, i also have to wonder: if conditions continue to improve in iraq, will dystopiae be as necessary as they were when "children of men" came out? because back then, i swear to god—there was nothing more powerful than that film. it retains nearly all of that power, but there's a slight chip away at the armor, now that it doesn't seem like the whole world will become like iraq circa late 2006.

the horrible man inside me doesn't want the dystopias to go away.

ghost story: a school in the bronx

"High Test Scores, and Criticism, Follow a South Bronx Principal"

contributed to this one by doing on-the-ground reporting in the bronx. all the quotes from the kids were quotes i got. but of course, elizabeth green is the real hero here, so i'm just making a note, not taking credit.

story five: pride parade

"Gay Pride Parade Wins Political Trifecta"

a bit arduous to report, given the rains (don't believe the photo—it was hella rainy most of the time) and the roadblocks, but i got it done, so there it is!

so much for crossing fingers

instead of the revised US-korea beef deal making those protesters in seoul any happier, it just got them violent.

The rally turned violent after some protesters used ropes to try to drag away police buses used as barricades to prevent them from marching into the presidential Blue House. Riot police immediately fired water cannons and sprayed fire extinguishers to repel them.

Angry protesters attacked police with steel pipes and stones, while police used clubs and shields against the crowd. Several hundred protesters were hurt during the rally that continued until Sunday morning, according to a coalition of civic groups that has organized weeks of demonstrations.

Police said the clash left more than 100 riot police injured and about 50 protesters were arrested on charges of assaulting police and illegally occupying streets.

how are we gonna fix this problem???

an unnecessary post about a television program

well, after years of pressure, i finally started watching "lost" earlier this month. at the urging of a certain lady-friend, i plowed through the last few eps of season 1 this weekend. hella worth it.

basically, i'm telling holdouts like myself: it's okay to come out of your holes. i know that JJ abrams has hurt us before, but i think it's worth it to stick around for this one. just watch the pilot, and you'll be into it. there's lots of silly daddy issues in the first season, but if you're willing to not pay too much attention (like, watching over dinner after a long day at work), then it's hella good, and you get to the great parts.

seriously. JJ hurt us in the past, and will in the future, but i think it's okay to give in to this particular temptation. comic book writers write it now! brian k. vaughan!

a complaint about education coverage in the NYT.

i've been meaning to blog about this matter for a few days, but have been too busy to do so. i apologize for my comments' tardiness, but here they are.

in the past few weeks, the new york times has published two features about problems facing recent college graduates. both have a lot of quotes from harvard students—indeed, one is entirely harvard-based—so i feel that i can get an insider's look at the claims made in these articles.

the first, cara buckley's "land a job, then what? graduates adjust to life with no going back," was published on june 20th. the essential thesis of the article was as follows:

They are, after all, entering the first summer of the rest of their lives: the deeply ingrained cycle of school followed by summers “off” — whether that meant camp or a short-term job or an internship — is over. There is no college to return to after Labor Day, and no real end in sight. Most will be fortunate to get a week off before the warm weather ends.

the second, sara rimer's "big paycheck or service? students are put to test," was published a scant three days later, on the 23rd. basic thesis here:

On other campuses as well, officials are questioning with new vigor whether too many top students who might otherwise turn their talents to a broader array of fields are being lured by high-paying corporate jobs, and whether colleges should do more to encourage students to consider other careers, especially public service.

read both articles for yourselves, because i don't want to mischaracterize them. however, i do have to hella critique them. i'll try to be brief.

now, the first one has one main problem: it's bad journalistic writing. the angle of the article is nothing more than (pardon my french) "shit sucks!" the story here, according to buckley, is that recent graduates have it hard.

“I’m not near a window,” Ms. Dinterman said of her office space, “So I never really know what it’s like outside.” ooh, scary. no windows. but look at the quotes buckley gets. for the most part, they show nothing more than ambivalence. “Everything is new and exciting, and it’s nice to be part of a team,” she said. “At the same time, you start to think, ‘Am I going to be able to do that for 50 years, every day, while having one week of vacation somewhere?’ This has definitely crossed my mind, but I’m not worrying about it yet.”

these are students who have jobs, and might remember their pre-full-time days fondly, or regret that they can't act on their "wanderlust," as one grad puts it, but... so what? there's no crisis here—buckley is manufacturing one. and that crisis isn't even a good story for a major paper! the invented crisis of students feeling trapped, or upset, or deeply frightened—that's such a wildly general assertion. how can you back that kind of claim up in a piece? you can't! it's journalism's worst tendency—amateur sociology—at its worst! it's shoddy writing! the education editors shouldn't have greenlit this one in the first place.

but my main problem is with rimer's piece, the one on public service.

first off, the article is solely about harvard students. now, rimer makes that fact clear in the intro, so i can't accuse her of lying, but she's certainly misleading the reader. how, in any way, are harvard kids a representative sample of anything? she doesn't even really extend it to the ivy league in general, at all. she tosses in a mention of obama's speech at wesleyan, with its paeans to public service, and quotes a couple university presidents, but for the most part, she's just quoting and looking at a small group of harvard kids. so when the headline is about "graduates" and not "harvard graduates," we're already in a bad area.

but leave that be. even within the context of the article, rimer didn't get the full story, and in doing so, ignored some really key details.

problem one: the concept of "fellowships" and "internships." quoth rimer and the president of amherst:

Universities are so concerned about this issue that some — Amherst, Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, for example — have expanded public service fellowships and internships. “We’re in the business of graduating people who will make the world better in some way,” said Anthony Marx, Amherst’s president. “That’s what justifies the expense of the education.”

okay. since harvard kids are rimer's focus, i'll tell you about such fellowships at harvard. a prime example, from the office of career services, is the Elliott and Ann Richardson Fellowships in Public Service. sure, its aim is to give students "concrete experience with, and understanding of, the sort of problem or issue that their contemplated public service would address." great, sounds wonderful.

except for the fact that these fellowships aren't exactly easy to get.

take a look at the eligibility section. it's massive. and here are the application materials:

• an application form;
• a one-page list of activities or resume;
• a current official transcript;
• an essay of not more than 1,000 words outlining project plans;
• a budget proposal;
• two letters of recommendation; and
• in the case of a proposal to work with an organization, a statement from that organization confirming a place for the student.

a budget proposal? two letters of recommendation? i mean, those requirements aren't totally unreasonable, i guess, but it's not exactly like the university is giving this thing away!

and herein lies the essence of problem one. when students say things like “A lot of students have been asking the question: ‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’ ”, you have to understand that public service ISN'T EASY TO COME BY.

i guess what i'm saying is that the article paints the following equation, which is false: consulting = you have to get recruited and work hard to get it but it pays well; public service = the right thing to do and ergo easier to get into but doesn't pay well.

that equation is so wrong.

indeed, places like harvard, by having such stringent requirements for public service programs, sort of disincentivizes public service almost totally—after all, if it doesn't pay well AND it is freaking impossible to get a gig with it, then why bother? the investment banks are only a little bit harder to get into, but at least they pay you the big bucks!

and then there's problem two: teach for america gets waaaaay too much of a free ride here, as it does everywhere, when it comes to its hiring tactics.

In an interview this spring, Dr. Faust held up as a model Teach for America, the nonprofit program that has recruited large numbers of students at top colleges to teach in low-income schools for two years. With 9 percent of Harvard’s senior class applying to Teach for America this year, 37 students made the cut.

let's do the math (which rimer doesn't). harvard graduated 1,564 kids in the class of 2008. 9% of 1,564 is 141 (well, 140.76, but we'll round up). 37 of those kids made the cut. that means roughly TWO-THIRDS of the applicants to TFA got rejected.

think about that. i can't fault TFA for wanting the best and the brightest, but you have to understand: THESE PUBLIC-SERVICE "OPPORTUNITIES" ARE NOT EASY TO GET.

TFA uses targeted recruitment, multiple stages of interviews, case studies, and widespread cuts—just like the consulting and investment-banking firms. you could even argue that TFA is a corporatized version of public service, at least in its hiring.

bottom line: it's hard to become a public servant. by ignoring that fact, the article totally misses the point.

the assertion of the article is that college grads think something along the lines of, "gee, i'm a graduating college student, and i'm qualified for everything imaginable, so my only dilemma is whether to do good or make money!" when, in reality, for most college students in the world, that kind of qualification-level is so prohibitive that very few can even get access to "public service" work.

in sum, these two articles give a distorted, journalistically irresponsible view at the world of post-graduation employment for students at all levels—ivy leaguers, state schoolers, everyone. much less the average reader, who thinks he or she is getting a candid and factual glimpse into a changing world. but the view is candid on a shallow level, and factual only to the extent that the facts serve the writers' myopic view.

alright, enough ranting. i have to take a nap.

sorry for the blog-silence

i swear i'll get into the rhythm of this thing at some point. i've just been bogged down, as of late, with work at the paper, particularly the work of trying to come up with original pitches. turns out that i don't know as much about this city as i thought/hoped i did, so i'm not stumbling across much of anything in the way of scoops. if any of you see something, say something!

and sorry about not having an abe-written story today. i worked on a self-pitched story that didn't really pan out. maybe someday it'll be significant, and i'll have all the contacts!

in the meantime, read fellow-intern ross goldberg's FANTASTIC top-billing story on the billions of dollars being lost in new york pension funds—heads will roll as a result of this thing, he discovered it all on his lonesome, he reported the hell out of it, and it's all due to a style of number-crunching reporting that i could never really do. so props to him.

story four: redevelopment in williamsburg / domino sugar

"Domino Sugar Redevelopment Moves Forward"

a bit of a mad-cap race to report this one, but a very interesting leap into the world of brooklyn's second-biggest development project. some backstory that didn't make it into the final copy: basically, the bland part is that the development corporation, like most developers, argues that razing/building will lead to cheap housing and a revitalized neighborhood.

but here's the twist—this little meeting was about aesthetics, not economics. note the dissenting opinion—it has nothing to do with gentrification or yuppification or any of the usual counter-arguments to development. her complaint was about the building being "too polite" and too "genteel" for the sensibilities of the site.

now, of course, that's the landmarks commission's job—they talk about landmarks, not about the larger scheme of urban planning. but one of the city councilwomen who was at the news conference after the decision made a thought-raising point: can you really separate "landmark" designation from the issue of housing and development? there was much talk at the conference about balancing "people" with "place," when it comes to "historic landmark" designations.

i suppose i'm not saying much that's original. just thought i'd raise the thought: at what point can a landmarks-certification board say that it is independent of thoughts about the larger scheme of urban development? at what point can it say that it is only dealing with aesthetics? is there a greater responsibility here?

story three (belated): gay marriage

"Gay Marriage Recognition Appears Close"

you'll have to trust me on the headline and the lede, given that there was so little space and that they don't allow recordings in oral arguments. but the ruling seems almost certainly ready to swing toward approval of gay-marriage recognition. of course, the ruling will then have to go to a higher court of appeals, but that's the judicial system for you.

also, this story was in today's paper, and i would have put it up online last night, but a tech error prevented it from going online at all until this afternoon.

i've got some stories that i've pitched in the works. hopefully they'll pan out...

expect the day four story later tonight.

a minor note: got blogg'd!

my craigslist/prostitution story was featured on gothamist. i guess someone had his or her google news alert set to "prostitution"...

story two: craigslist and prostitution

"Craigslist, Prostitution Link Charged"

a short little thing without much of a time-peg, but i think it came out fine. onward and upward!

"He can’t mope. He can’t have a self-indulgent angst."

comicbookresources has posted part one of their extended interview series with the creators of the dark knight.

part one is with director christopher nolan, and fans of comics and/or mythology will love it. the man's very, very bright, and seems to get what the batman/joker dichotomy is all about.

some choice quotes:

Is The Joker a force of nature?
He is a force of nature, and once you start thinking of the character as a given -- that he is just who he is -- then the psychology of that becomes immediately very obvious, and the idea that he’s a very unusual character, a very anarchic character in our society does seem to me quite obvious. We very much took the view in looking at the character of the Joker that what’s strong about him is this idea of anarchy, this commitment to chaos. He’s not just a bank robber or an ordinary criminal who’s only in it for material gain. His chief motivation is that of an anarchist. I talked to Heath a lot about it even as we were finishing the script, and we both agreed that the most threatening force society faces is pure anarchy, someone who wants to do harm for its own sake and for his own entertainment.

There's a quote attributed to you that said Superman is sort of the way that America views itself and that Batman is the way that the rest of the world views America.
That’s fantastic that’s attributed to me, but it’s not my quote, it’s Michael Caine’s. He said that to me the first time I met him, I thought it was very interesting. It was a very interesting point of view. I agree with that only in the sense that Superman is an ideal of something. I think that Batman, being a more human character, is not as ideal, and is having to deal with the consequences of his actions in a more relatable and a more human and in a more political way. That’s what I love about the character, because it means the story gets messy. It’s not always easy to figure out what is the heroic course of action, what is it okay to do? What’s the line you can’t cross as a vigilante or as somebody who works outside the law? This story gets to really explore those issues.

ugh why isn't this movie out now.

speaking of fingers being crossed

preliminary reviews are in for modern guilt, and holy schlamola am i excited.

oh, also, a minor note on nomenclature

at the sun, i will now be referred to as "abraham riesman" in print. so, in the future, i very well may lose the name, "abe," as an official title. sad, no?

meanwhile, in korea

fingers crossed on a korea/US beef deal?

it seems like no one's particularly happy about the deal, which involves such appetizing details as...

Seoul will be allowed to return any packages containing skulls, brains, eyes and spinal cord marrow, and has the right to ban imports from US meat packing companies that fail to meet new import guidelines.

the question, of course, is this: will the protesters in the street care? aren't they going to be pissed off, no matter what kind of beef is coming from the US?

ugh. here's hoping that the deal works out. if not, the FTA is in serious danger, as is the lee administration. and if the lee administration gets a vote of no confidence, korea's fragile political system could be at risk.

trains, (mergers for) planes, and (the price of gas for) automobiles

apparently, it's not just me and stilgoe who think that regional trains could make a resurgence in this age of bazillion-dollar oil barrels!

the NYT did a piece the other day, about that very idea and its grounding in reality, at least for amtrak. matthew wald, who wrote it, makes the valid point that amtrak still uses oil, so it's not immune—all the more reason for the creation of shinkasen-style electricity-based bullet trains! more importantly, amtrak (surprise surprise) has pretty broken-down equipment, so a serious update may be in order for the federally-subsidized program.

privatization, anyone? that's what mccain proposes. obama, on the other hand, wants to keep the state in charge for the time being, but focus on improvement. the economics 101 student in me says privatization is probably the way to go, but media-studies guru paul levinson disagrees wholeheartedly.

i've got an idea, but i want to keep it a secret, given that i might try to pitch it at a story meeting soon.

made by a friend

a LOLbritney.

story one: white-collar grave-robbing

"City Employee Arrested for Stealing from the Deceased"

one of four stories i worked on yesterday (which was my first day). name may be misspelled, but i ain't complaining! short, sweet, and hopefully the beginning of big things.

oh btw, i'll be posting up all stories i write here.

(also, i contributed reporting to this one: "Rent Increases are Approved For Stabilized Apartments", meaning i went to a very loud rent guidelines board meeting to get the final percentages and talk to protesters.)

downloaded firefox 3.0

it sure looks pretty! go on down and download it—it's all ready to go, with the mozilla seal of approval!

so far, i can tell you that it looks pretty, that the "smart location bar" feature is quite lovely, and that it runs very quickly. here are some other big changes.

and if you, like me, already had firefox 2 on your computer, fear not—3.0 automatically replaces all of your old settings and such onto itself.

hey! i leave for new york tomorrow! see you all soon!

dream pop meets the top of the charts in 1996

oh man, i was driving out of the grocery store parking lot today, and this song came onto the air.

i totally forgot about it.

"i love you always forever" by donna lewis. kept from the #1 spot on the charts only because of "the macarena".

it's so freaking good. nobody dast blame this song.

for your listening pleasure: http://www.sendspace.com/file/2uc5ra

enjoy.

wait WHUUUUT?

can someone tell me the backstory behind this photo?:



in light of this?

am i missing something here?


UPDATE:

apparently, some primary-school kids in northern ireland gave it to him as a gag, and it was, indeed, a reference to everyone's favorite zoo-based sketch comedy series. i have a feeling that the president didn't get the joke.

SCOOPED THE TIMES

j/k, adam nagourney was just waiting to write his piece that addresses the questions i raised earlier, regarding russert and democratic politics.

thanks to my ol' pal jeremy for bringing this up! i was busy all day today at a friend's wedding (!), so i missed it on the first go-around.

harsh wordz!

at a fundraiser in philly last night, obama hella quoted (or, i guess, paraphrased) sean connery's famous (and hella confrontational) line from "the untouchables"!

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

he should have kept going with the full quote!

"He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way."

or better yet, done some more quotes from the movie!

"You just fulfilled the first rule of law enforcement: Make sure when your shift is over you go home alive."

"The Lord hates a coward."

(and of course) "All right, enough of this running shit!"

update on my stupid analysis of russert's death

so far, the only paper of record to really acknowledge the capital-d Democratic part of tim russert's life is the washington post, who start their obit as follows:

Tim Russert, the Democratic operative turned NBC commentator who revolutionized Sunday morning television and infused journalism with his passion for politics, died this afternoon.

for what it's worth.

party politics, death, and the city room

within a couple hours of the time of death, the NYT city room had a story up about various local new york politicians' responses to the loss of tim russert—a buffalo man at heart.

it's a good piece, but it raises two interesting questions. why is it that, recently, the NYT city room only seems to be at the forefront of breaking, local new york stories when there's a celebrity death? heath ledger being the other example, of course (and both stories were done by the ever-talented sewell chan).

the other question (which probably has an obvious answer, but should be raised nonetheless): why aren't any of these immediate stories pointing out that his work with moynihan and cuomo were on Democratic campaigns? the obvious answer, of course, is that obits and quasi-obits are no place for partisan bickering... but still, it's a bit misleading to talk so much about his work with those two stalwarts of new york Democratic politics, and not even mention the word, "Democrat." this omission goes for all the stories breaking right now.

let me put it this way: if he were anyone other than a man with a reputation for being non-partisan, would that crucial partisan detail be left out?

ugh i'm probably being a jerk right now.

good god what an afternoon

and kells beat the rap!

and harvey dent won the race for district attorney of gotham city!

wtf!

sweet lord no

in case you didn't hear somehow, tim russert is dead, out of nowhere.

gchat commentary from a friend:

Mike:
DEATH KOMES 2 US ALL
=(



UPDATE:

Mike: friday the 13th

me: oh shit, you're right

beautiful NSFW pong?

oh my, but this is lovely!



quentin leo cook aka norman cook aka fatboy slim aka the BPA teams up with david byrne for a fun little sex ditty. and it's got dizzee rascal on a verse!

but of course, the real attraction is the video, done by everyone's favorite director-with-a-retro-video-games-fetish, keith schofield.

happy friday!

COME ON, honey

this blog is non-partisan, and will not endorse any candidates.

that said, there is NO excuse for this. even if there are (COMPLETELY UNCONFIRMED AND HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS) reports that john mccain is an ABBA fan.

NOBODY CO-OPTS ABBA FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES ON MY WATCH, DAMMIT.

more importantly, has anyone informed ABBA or their label about all of this nonsense on the official mccain site? is this 2008's "i'm a dole man" or "born in the USA"?


UPDATE:

thank heavens for the commenters over at jezebel.

in a related story

despite having a terrible page design, ProPublica seems to be off to an insanely busy start. on my RSS feed, i'm getting dozens upon dozens of stories every day, from news sources across the world. there's nothing out there like it!

now HERE's a troubling trend, if it's true

courts nationwide trying to get rid of the word, "rape," in trials.

now, i'm sure the article is overstating the trend, but i was pretty shocked to hear that even one courtroom could get away with it.

more bad news in the korean market

as i was writing yesterday, it's getting hard out there for korean banks. the FT and forbes are reporting on HSBC's threat to back out of a deal with the Korea Exchange Bank if the government won't speed up its regulatory vetting process.

boy, president lee myung-bak is between a rock and a hard place right now. the korean public basically elected him on a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too platform: make korea an economic giant, but maintain korea's unique identity by preventing foreign meddling. ergo, the horrible debacle about korean imports of US beef.

the korean public is going to have to get over its fear of mad cow if it wants to get this FTA with the US going, and it needs to get over its fear of the FTA if it wants to get the economy revved up for another leap in the international rankings.

president lee sort of has his hands tied! he clearly wants to cut down the regulatory agencies (hell, he was trying to avoid them for years when he was a semi-corrupt businessman), but he can't do it without regaining the political capital he's losing out in the streets. and if he doesn't move soon, HSBC's gonna back out. and as goes HSBC, so go a number of other firms.

then again, maybe i'm underestimating the power of mad cow disease.

(btw, i'm mainly joking about that last sentence, and should be clear about that. koreans have been protesting the US-korea FTA since well before the mad cow scare. it's largely a symbol of deeper fears about losing control of the economy, as far as i can see. it's too bad that the US press has mainly been portraying the protests as being about mad cow—it makes koreans look paranoid and superstitious. but then again, ain't that always the way with portrayals of asians?)

a sigh of relief for people like me?

daniel hamermesh has some research out now about university of texas graduates. apparently, the long and the short of his findings is as follows:

In other words, the amounts of human capital generated in college by different choices of major are not so different from one another as most people believe. Liberal arts majors don’t do that much worse than business majors; and economics majors do as well as business majors do.

now, of course, this research is flawed. state schools are different from private schools; different schools have different majors (e.g. mine had no "business" major); "liberal arts" means something different at a school like UT than it does at a school like oberlin; a wide range of studies are part of the "liberal arts" (on the one hand you can have regional studies programs, which are a boon to anyone trying to get a foot in the door in foreign market analysis; on the other hand you have english majors) and so on.

perhaps more puzzling is the paper's failure to mention the phenomenon of recruitment by consulting firms. i don't know that the inclusion of that variable would change his conclusions, but it seems to big to leave out—it's a way in which many "liberal arts" majors get high-pay jobs. and more importantly, consulting recruits have a pretty high turnover rate, i'm told—after a few years, you've often outlived your usefulness as a generalist.

anyway, i guess we "liberal arts" majors can all feel a little better about not going to pre-biz school.

beautiful

can't stop him.

the east asians of last resort

the FT is reporting that lehman brothers almost made a huge set of deals with various south korean firms, and may still do so in the face of its now-infamous losses.

what's especially interesting about this story is the fact that a strategic partnership with the korean development bank and first korean bank and so on was probably seen as something of a desperation maneuver, given what lehman execs knew at the time of negotiations. why korea? why not, say, china? or any number of other locations?

my relatively uninformed theory is that korean financial institutions are in an unfortunate position—one made clearer by this story.

there's a korean saying—"korea is a shrimp in an ocean of whales." the whales, of course, are the PRC, japan, and the US (and to a lesser extent, taiwan). korea may be the 11th or 12th (depending on your measurement) biggest economy in the world, but it's in a part of the world where all you care about is the runner in front of you—not the ones behind you.

so basically, my guess would be that the banks were just as desperate as lehman was. right now, very few major US institutions are investing in korea, and it's losing its comparative advantages in virtually all sectors. it still has a leg up in telecommunications, but other than that, china and japan have made much of its economy redundant since the late 1980s. as the workforce gets older and the totally under-reported korean educational exodus of the past decade continues, korean banks are wising up and realizing that they need all the help they can get.

as an amateur korean nationalist, i hope that korea doesn't remain in this position for long. things are grim right now, given that lee myung-bak is under huge pressure to go back on his commitments for the US-korea FTA—a setback that could be devastating to the korean economy in the long-run.

anyway, the point is this—i think the lehman brothers desperation move, when taken alongside the recent street protests, is indicative of where korea stands, these days, in the power-politics of international investment. if it's going to remain significant, significant structural changes need to happen. but this blog isn't about policy recommendations, so i don't really have any.

i just hope people see this story about the lehman brothers deal as part of a story about korea, and not just lehman brothers.

hell, i'd go

foreign policy does a piece on the five best tourist spots that americans can't visit.

isn't there something wonderful about the idea of visiting these places, something removed from how "forbidden" they are? there's a way in which the fact that they're ruled by repressive or isolated regimes makes them... invincible. see, they're not really "ruled" by their governments—they exist, no matter how horrific the junta is or suppressive the stalinists are. these are geographic places that cannot be taken away. you can destroy them, i suppose (like the taliban did with the cliff-face buddhas), but for now, they are preserved. they trump the regimes, in a way. their beauty is apolitical, is what i'm saying, i suppose. isn't there something wonderful about that idea? that beauty can be apolitical?

then again, as paul atreides said, the power to destroy something is the ultimate power to control it.

weird thought from a non-economist

upon reading this set of data and analysis about per-capita oil consumption in the US and the decline of SUV's, i have to wonder—what's the next mode of transportation going to be?

what if someone broke up the amtrak rail monopoly, and bloomberg's plan for an american shinkasen went through? what if that plan were expanded throughout the country? sure, right now, it seems like it would only be slightly faster than the acela service that amtrak offers, but i'm dealing in long-term hypotheticals. what if trains took over the continent again, at least for regional travel within the US? it works for india...

harvard design prof (again, not an economist) john stilgoe has a more developed version of this idea, so i guess i'm just jumping on board with an existing theory. however, where he's certain, i'm merely postulating.

despite the NSFW album cover

new sigur rós is f'ing brilliant. definitely their best since agaetis byrjun (and i'm saying this as a huge proponent of all their albums)... possibly their best ever.

key tracks: "ára bátur," "straumnes," and "festival," the latter of which might be the apotheosis of what a sigur rós song is supposed to be.

i guess what works so well is that they play to their strengths over and over—crescendos, wild strings, ecstatic vocals, gentle piano chords, and so on. the opening track, "gobbledigook," is sort of sigur-rós-by-way-of-animal-collective, but the rest of the LP is just so... them!

this isn't a music blog, btw.