Catsup&Liquor
ABOUT: Soy un perdedor. / 내가 제일 잘나가.
&YOU: "Be a Star-Screwer!" - Corso
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out… NPR podcast on Lee Myung-bak, or 2MB* as my middle school students would call him.
No matter your political leanings (controversially, he has become strict against North Korea and forged ratification of the KORUS-Free Trade Agreement when G.W. was still in office) it’s an interesting story and take on the path he forged to becoming South Korea’s 17th President.
*I’ve always thought this was clever. In Korean, his name is 이명박, and 이 is also how your pronounce “2”. MB = Myung-bak/명박. So what you get is a funny nickname: ”Why do you call him that?” “Because some people say his brain is only 2MB.” ㅋㅋㅋㅋ~!
npr:
Lee Myung-bak was so poor as a child that he wore his school uniform every day because he had no other clothes. He became a student activist and helped Hyundai become the massive conglomerate it is today. In many ways, Lee’s life story — and ultimate success — mirrors that of South Korea.
Photo: Courtesy of Lee Myung-bak
npr:
Occupy L.A. is camped out on the front lawn of City Hall in Los Angeles. A large number of homeless people are also camped there, causing the group to divide into sections on the lawn. The homeless are in an area referred to as Skid Row. The part-time protesters are in an area called Westwood, after a nice part of town.
— From today’s broadcast of Morning Edition.
Interestingly enough, the typical person is—
- 28 years old (the global median age).
- Right-handed.
- Christian.
- Speaks Mandarin.
- Owns a cell phone.
- Doesn’t have a car or bank account.
- Makes less than $12,000 a year.
I’m 25 years old, left-handed, non-religious, and an English speaker. And, while I own a cell phone, I do have a bank account and sort of have a car (though I no longer drive it)… and I somehow make more than $12k.
Just when I thought I was the most average person there could ever be…
npr:
The United Nations says today symbolically marks the moment when the world’s population reaches 7 billion. A little more than two centuries ago, the global population was 1 billion. How did it grow so big so fast? With the help of a sound montage and video, it gets a little easier to see how the Earth can produce that kind of a crowd.
Watch our video: 7 Billion: How Did We Get So Big So Fast
Photo: Adam Cole, Maggie Starbard / NPR
What the true effects will be on the international stage are TBD.
What a freak show our world is turning out to be, eh?
Someone said it best when they likened this hullabaloo to a reality show, with politicians, diplomats and the media starring in it. The rest of us? Glued to our screens, simultaneously disgusted and enthralled by what might come next. Real World: International Diplomacy Challenge?
That was a bad attempt at echoing that MTV reality show. (Sidebar: I think it’s still going on, but not so much as a social experiment as much as it’s a taped orgy for attention whores.)
I was trying to avoid posting more on the North/South situation or about this whole WikiLeaks thing. It’s not like I have much to contribute (though when do I ever). I could throw my spear into the murky flow of information and take a stab at analyzing, or I can just be lazy and throw a bunch of links at you.
Guess which one I chose…
