Blog housecleaning

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Clearing out some stuff on my desk ….

ㅁ There’s a whole lot of water all over Bangkok, and most of it is in all the wrong places. It’s been going on for a month or so, at least. Another thing that was in the wrong place is this crocodile.  There are a hundred or more of ‘em swimming all over the flooded streets.

And I think I got problems? Well, I don’t, not like this.

ㅁ Matt Taibbi is the best thing going on at Rolling Stone Magazine, and he has been for a while. He’s all over and on top of the Occupy Wall Street stuff.

Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?

The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we’ve obsessed over the wealth dream.

Read his Taibblog. Learn. (Hat tip to Wet Casements blog.)

ㅁ Housecleaning, housecleaning, housecleaning … oh yeah. I’m in the process of whittling down my far-too-extravagant sidebar. The original idea was to use this space as sort of a replacement for bookmarks – just keep all the sites I usually go to all in one place – and while I still don’t think that’s a bad idea, it really has gotten out of hand. Some of the links go to blogs that haven’t published in two years or more, and who needs that? Also gonna revise and update the “About” pages at the top. Probably. No telling when. I’ll let you know.

ㅁ Roboseyo thinks I’m falling down on the job. Says I need to post more often. Meh, it’s all relative, innit? Maybe, my good man, just perhaps it is YOU who are posting too often. Ever stop to think about that?

Naw, seriously, he gave me a charming compliment, and I need to thank him for it. Thank you. And I’ll try to work harder. Sir.

Oh, and check out the comments section of that post for an interesting discussion about why not so many women choose to blog.

ㅁ I don’t know what the story is with that ad there on the left. I snapped it while riding the subway last February, and it seems to have something to do with a credit card from Lotte. I’m quite sure that  a free save has got to be better than the kind you have to pay for. The woman holding up the card looks as if she might have taken some prescription medication before the photo shoot, and I’m a little worried she might even fall over. On the other hand, there are people displaying affection in public there in the background, and the world can always use a bit more of that. That’s what I think.

ㅁ Also along the lines of a charming compliment, at least two pieces from this blog have been selected for an upcoming book. It’s to be called Beyond Bulgogi (I think) and you can read selected chapters online. Better than that, they are still calling for submissions – so, hey, send them something, alright? The worst they could do is get your name wrong or change the title of your masterpiece to something you don’t like so well … That link also goes to the table of contents. My pieces are called “Summer Rain” (originally titled, “After a heavy rain, and just before another one”) and “It’s My Neighborhood.”

You may have read them here already, but you won’t have read the others, most likely. Not everyone included there has a blog, I think.

ㅁ The election for a new mayor of Seoul took place last Wednesday, and it looks like the good guys won this time . . . ”Good guys” as defined by the people who live in our house, that is.

Park Won-soon is a liberal independent, unafiliated with any party, and he beat Na kyung-won by a margin of close to 10%. She represented the ruling party, led by current president Lee Myung-bak (who also served a term as mayor before heading for the Blue House), and was only able to carry the very wealthiest parts of the city – on the map, it looks like Gangnam versus the rest of us, and our side prevailed.

It was a special election, and not a day off from work as general elections are. Despite this, nearly half of eligible voters participated, which is quite impressive considering that many were working class folk who lined up early in the morning or after work in the evening.

The results and the high turnout are being interpreted as indicative of widespread voter disaffection with politics as currently practiced, and will likely portend a greater role for coalition groups and civic organizations – and will almost certainly have repercussions in presidential and legislative polls next year.

Park’s victory is expected to fuel speculation that Ahn Cheol-soo, a software mogul who supported Park during the campaign, will run in the next presidential election. Ahn has said his goal is to end the GNP’s rule, but he hasn’t declared a presidential bid. In polls, Ahn’s meteoric rise was evident as he was ranked as the frontrunner in the presidential race. Until recently, Park Geun-hye of the GNP was seen as unbeatable.

Usually there’s a transition period when someone takes on a job like this, but not this time. Thursday morning, Mr Park walked in to the mayor’s office, sat the desk and put his name on some papers, stamp, stamp. Free school lunches for everyone. Hah!

I wrote about the reasons for this general election several weeks ago. Check that one for more of the backstory. And, oh dear, it looks like I dropped a few paragraphs in the comment section over at Three Wise Monkeys.

Gosh and golly.