Sam Han | Eportfolio

On point as usual.

Fun little bit by the Times on the politics of accents, elites and social class. Major blindspot is the racialized accents in New York, not just the “hood” accent but also West Indian and other accents that become a source of anxiety for those who wish to disembed from their neighborhoods.

I guess the Times is running this online only series under its Opinionator banner called “Townies” which consists of folks who live in New York writing about New York things. (Thus providing more fodder for right-wing political commentators to source when bashing liberal elites…maybe? I shudder to think such a thing.) But, my God, the two that I’ve read from Mary HK Choi have been nothing short of amazing. Yes, the I’m-Korean-born-and-came-to-Texas-too-though-only-for-a-little-before-moving-to-NYC-my-mom’s-family-lives-in-LA-and-dad’s-fam-still-in-Korea-too thing is at work here, but I’d be completely misrepresenting Mary’s wit and craftwomanship (sorry, I’m went to Wesleyan) if I chalked up my response to her writing to just that–ethnic catharsis. It’s mostly just great writing.

Major.

A die-hard trend of cyber bullying has a university professor campaigning against hate comments on the internet.

In recent years, well-known singers and actors have committed suicide out of depression, probably aggravated by hostile comments from anonymous netizens. Their suicides alerted the nation to the need to stand up to the anonymous cyber attacks.

South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the OECD, and experts point at cyber bullying as a major reason. The so-called “cyberbullicide” is widely recognized a serious social problem in Korea.

So to help turn the tide against cyber bullying, Konkuk University Prof. Min Byeong-chul has launched a campaign to promote positive online comments.

Min Byeong-chul, an advocate of positive online culture. (Lee Sang-sub/The Korea Herald)

“Online comments written with the intention to threat, harass, or degrade others indiscrimately has been a prevailing problem in Korea, and to put a stop I have been promoting a movement for positive comments,” the founder and president of the Sun-full Movement said.

Sun-full, similar to the Korean word ‘sunple,’ meaning good comments, is an online campaign to give encouragement and hope to those people suffering from malicious comments on online bulletin boards.

With more than 75 percent of citizens users of the Internet, the nation’s high-density online community has become a hotbed for witch hunts and groundless accusations.

The merits of ‘anonymity’ also gave stronger power to netizens who are likely to sway to crowd or mob psychology.

When a young female singer committed suicide amid groundless rumors and malicious comments in 2007, Min gave his 586 pupils at Konkuk University an assignment to visit 10 celebrities’ websites or blogs that were flooded with hate comments and leave positive comments.

The assignment resulted in 5,860 positive comments, and since then, the movement has expanded nationwide as the public comes to realize the serious impact of malicious comments.

“Not so long ago, internet was an effective and friendly tool for a better life. These days it has become a monster. The real threat posed by hate comments today has to do with our young generation,” he said.

With that in mind, the Sun-full Movement is already being practiced by students in schools across the country. Earlier this year, a number of schools participated in the movement by organizing sun-full clubs of students to encourage other classmates to post positive comments.

“We have to let the little kids learn, as character education. That’s why I am encouraging schools to carry out the movement,” the professor said with enthusiasm toward spreading the movement throughout the schools.

“Internet users must be convinced that this can really change culture and save lives. Schools have cooperated to give students social service points for posting positive comments online, and as of today they number 560,000.”

“The worldwide spread of the Sun-full Movement from Korea would bring a new phase of online culture where we create no harm for the next generation.”

Meanwhile, President Lee Myung-bak at the recent cabinet meeting called the controversy and hate comments over the authenticity of singer Tablo’s diploma at Stanford University a “witch-hunt that should never happen again,” highlighting the importance of positive on-line behavior.

By Hwang Jurie  (jurie777@heraldm.com)

Korea has had a slew of suicides as a result of cyber-bullying. I guess this is one way to dealing with it. I’m convinced…

Kelly is strangely keen to tie his theory of technological development to biological evolution. I am not sure why; perhaps he thinks his progressive view of technology is more credible if it’s seen as an extension of the established scientific vision of evolution. But his take on biological evolution is one that, while beloved of creationists, is completely rejected by scientists: he sees it as teleological, driven by external forces to achieve certain goals.

Sadly, evolution doesn’t work this way. In fact, the distinguishing feature of evolution is the complete absence of “laws” or “forces” that push it in a single direction. As Stephen Jay Gould tirelessly argued, evolutionary change is a highly contingent process, critically dependent on environmental uncertainties and random mutations. According to Gould, you would not be reading this article were it not for an entirely serendipitous event 65 million years ago: the meteorite impact that eliminated the dinosaurs and allowed mammals, previously marginalized by their reptilian mega-cousins, to take off evolutionarily, a process that eventually yielded our own species. True, evolution shows some trends — species are on average more complex now than at the beginning of life — but does that mean that there is a consistent evolutionary impulse toward complexity, with natural selection always favoring the more complex over the less? Not at all. After all, that increase in complexity is a default trend: because the first organism was simple, any change must have resulted in greater complexity. A large proportion of all life on the planet (albeit a slice of life we tend to overlook) is microbial, and has accordingly remained simple. And some species, like fleas an

Taoism and Confucianism really begs the question of what “religion” is. What counts under its definitional umbrella? I’m not sure if this article does enough to scrutinize that.

The memorial, the first public service at the site for as long as anyone can remember, was organized by the Association of Jewish Soldiers, a small but growing group in the German military whose existence testifies to the feeling by at least some Jews that it is possible for them to be patriots again in the nation that once tried to wipe them out.

“More and more young Jews are placing their trust in the Bundeswehr,” Gideon Römer-Hillebrecht, a general staff officer in the German Defense Ministry and deputy chairman of the Jewish soldiers association, told representatives of several national armies and numerous dignitaries at the memorial ceremony.

Michael Berger, chairman of the group and a German Army captain, said there was no exact count of the number of Jewish soldiers now in the Bundeswehr, as the force has been known since being reconstituted after World War II. But it is no more than about 200, he said. While all young German men are subject to conscription, they can easily opt to perform civilian public service instead.

Mr. Hillebrecht said that in 2008 a few soldiers and a rabbi held a memorial at the site in Frankfurt, a semicircular stone marker erected in 1925. But there was no official event with wide participation before Sunday.

“For an increasing number of young Jewish men and women, the Bundeswehr is not only an attractive employer; they can also identify with its values and help shape them,” Christian Schmidt, an undersecretary in the German Defense Ministry, told the 100 or so people who attended.

Abraham Ben, the son of a concentration camp survivor who has helped organize similar events in Munich, said that he saw no problem with Jews serving in the modern German army.

“Ten years ago I would have given you a different answer,” he said.

But, he said, “Jews in Germany are no longer sitting around with their bags packed. This is home.”

Some 12,000 Jewish soldiers died fighting on the German side in World War I. Jews hoped that military service would promote their acceptance into German society, according to speakers at the memorial and a panel discussion afterward. Instead, after the war Nazi “stab in the back,” myths blamed Jewish treachery for Germany’s defeat.

Salomon Korn, vice chairman of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany, read from the diary of a Jewish soldier in World War I who was recommended for the Iron Cross by one commander but had to listen to another refer to Jews as “cowardly dogs.”

As part of the ceremony Sunday, unarmed soldiers in long gray wool coats walked two abreast in a light drizzle through the otherwise-deserted cemetery, which has effectively been closed to burials since the late 1920s and appears to be rarely visited. Gravestones are covered in moss and many are askew, while pathways are choked with leaves.

After the soldiers laid wreaths at the memorial, a military bugler blew a mournful tune. An officer and a civilian read the names of 50 soldiers buried nearby, and a rabbi said a prayer.

The memorial, with lettering in both Hebrew and German, was partially restored after large pieces were found two months ago embedded in the surrounding earth, said Majer Szanckower, the cemetery director. But the memorial is still missing large chunks, and Sunday also marked the beginning of an effort to fully restore it.

Mr. Szanckower said it was not clear whether the memorial was the victim of Nazi vandalism or simply age and weather.

Hellmut Königshaus, defense commissioner in the German Parliament, said during the panel discussion that there had been recent cases of harassment against Jewish soldiers in the army. But perpetrators face severe punishment and are usually expelled from the force, he said.

As a citizen’s army, he said, “the Bundeswehr is a mirror of society.”

Du Bois very famously argued for the enlisting of black troops into the (segregated) Armed Forces during WWI. His argument was largely the same as that of Jews who served on the German side during WWII: to serve in hopes of changing the minds of their oppressors.

Would be a fascinating comparative study.

Oh capitalism, you are so good at uprooting extant social-structural relations. China on the verge of a religious revival? This will be something to watch…

About this project

Earlier this summer Jonas gained unprecented access to a reclusive and largely hidden immigrant community in Italy. He spent one month living with undocumented migrant workers in makeshift camps in the southern Italian town of Rosarno and in the ghettos of nearby Foggia where he met the characters that will populate this film. There the Citrus industry is always in search of cheap labor, the kind of work that the locals shy away from because of the low wages, long hours and poor working conditions. The local mafia, a branch of the ‘Ndrangheta, controls the labor market and enforces brutal standards. These laborers are required to work for 12 hours straight, for a maximum of $30 per day in conditions akin to indentured servitude if not outright slavery. In January of this year tensions finally bubbled over.
Set in a small town in southern Italy, A Chjàna (The Plains, in Calabrese dialect) begins in the middle of the most significant race riot in Italian history. The film follows Ayiva and Cheihk, two Senegalese immigrants, as they try to escape from the chaos and violence of the riot. When the two men get separated, Ayiva is forced to leave alone with hopes that his friend will emerge safely from the tumult. Ayiva arrives in the ghetto of Foggia where he and the other rioters are greeted as heroes. After momentarily celebrating their accomplishment, Ayiva sets out to find his friend and in the process is reminded of the brutal realities of an immigrant’s life in Italy.
With the creative and logstical expertise at our disposal, we are uniquely positioned to tell a story that has never been told. The first-hand experience of an historical moment, with the rich characters and still-raw subject matter we will be depicting deserve the most dedicated, passionate and professional treatment, and we intend to deliver just that.

Project location: Rosarno, Italy

This is my good friend Jonas’ film project that he’s raising funds for via Kickstarter. He’s incredibly talented and motivated. With the proper funds, this film will turn into something big. Contribute if you can. I threw a hundred-spot because I’ve been friends with him since 7th grade but for those who are less familiar, please check out the Kickstarter site and the teaser and give if you wish.

It’s not charity by any means. But the film is attempting to delve deeper into something happening all over the EU. You may have heard about the controversies in Germany (with regard to their Turkish immigrant population) and France(with the expulsion of the Roma and the banning of the hijab). It is called “crisis in multiculturalism” but it’s really a crisis hauled in by the migration of labor from the Global South. It is the challenge to Europe’s self-perceived Enlightened ethic of universalism of humanity. It is a pressing social issue that we in the States have only begun to catch wind of.