Taking their own advice?

Today's Korea Times has a staff editorial about the struggles of Korean parents to pay for private tutoring for their children. The KT concludes:

"Solutions won’t be easy to find. Yet, in order to lay the groundwork for
the country’s sustainable development, our overspending problems in education should be rectified as soon as possible. In particular, it would be urgent to reduce demand for private education by upgrading public education. Now is the time for parents to change their mindset on getting a college degree."

1) I guess I was in the policy battles in Washington, DC, for too long. I now skip past the analysis, statistics, new hip phrases and get right to the conclusion/alleged solutions. The last paragraph finally mentions the lack of solutions. If they had one, they probably would have started the staff editorial with that.

2) So the Korea Times says public education needs to be upgraded.

Questions
* How long has the Korea Times been saying that?
* How likely is public education to be upgraded anytime soon?
* And if it isn't upgraded anytime soon, then what?
* Could it be in Korea's competitive education world that parents will never be truly satisfied with the public option, always seeking to get ahead? Meaning the comment that public education needs to be upgraded is a meaningless statement...

3) The Korea Times concludes: "Now is the time for parents to change their mindset on getting a college degree." I wonder how many of the reporters, educators and upper-management at the Korea Times lack college degrees? Are the children/grandchildren of Korea Times staff waiting for public education to be upgraded before enrolling their children in private institutes? It is easy to say what others should be doing with their own time, resources, and lives without taking your own advice.

* * *

Death isn't funny. Well, not usually. But it is hard not to laugh at this story: "Man killed while trying to create Bigfoot sighting."

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — A man dressed in a military-style "ghillie" suit and apparently trying to provoke reports of a Bigfoot sighting in northwest Montana was struck by two cars and killed, authorities said.

The man was standing in the right-hand lane of U.S. Highway 93 south of Kalispell on Sunday night when he was hit by the first car, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. A second car hit the man as he lay in the roadway, authorities said.

Flathead County officials identified the man as Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell. Trooper Jim Schneider said motives were ascertained during interviews with friends, and alcohol may have been a factor but investigators were awaiting tests.

"He was trying to make people think he was Sasquatch so people would call in a Sasquatch sighting," Schneider told the Daily Inter Lake (http://bit.ly/PWJvA5) on Monday. "You can't make it up. I haven't seen or heard of anything like this before. Obviously, his suit made it difficult for people to see him."

Ghillie suits are a type of full-body clothing made to resemble heavy foliage and used to camouflage military snipers.

"He probably would not have been very easy to see at all," Schneider told KECI-TV (http://bit.ly/PkdWMO ).

Tenley was struck by vehicles driven by two girls, ages 15 and 17, who were unable to stop in time, authorities said.

1) I love these kinds of stories. When the cops are discussing the details, how do they stop themselves from bursting out laughing.

2) The trooper says alcohol "may" have been a factor. May have been? Either that or drugs, that's the test doctors should be waiting for.

3) Could you running over something that looks like a bigfoot? The guys were unable to stop in time--and in my case, I probably would have driving, not sure I would have believed what I had seen and not wanting to take a chance on the thing catching up to me.

Does a flower turn to the sun?

I tend not to address points raised by people commenting on posts. In the back-and-forth of such discussions, people sometimes say things they don't mean or take extreme positions. In other cases they are just trying to be provocative, especially when they can remain anonymous. But a discussion on Greg Mankiw's blog caught my attention. That's because a couple of the folks suggested that parents don't really have the knowledge to make decisions about the quality of schools. Between 2002-2004 I was actively involved in the fight to get school vouchers for families in DC. I often heard the argument that parents don't know how to choose between good and bad schools and that, anyway, parents had enough choices with the school system's "out-of-boundary" options and charters (that had also been opposed). Without getting too deep into the out-of-boundary program, I'll point out that Woodrow Wilson HS, considered one of the best schools in the city, recei...

Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...

Park Jin welcoming remarks to FSI (and Casey Lartigue)

National Assembly member Park Jin makes the welcoming remarks at FSI's conference featuring North Korean diplomats. Park Jin | Greeting message to FSI and Casey Lartigue mention - YouTube

2018-09-28 Not everyone at KFC cooks chickens

Most of the people who contact us at TNKR naturally want to tutor North Korean refugees. Many potential volunteers are shocked shocked shock ed to learn that they can volunteer with TNKR in other ways. I tell many of them: "Not everyone at KFC cooks chickens. There are also delivery people, accountants, marketers, personnel, and a host of other positions." Earlier this year, we began developing the TNKR Volunteer Leadership Academy. I'm still waiting for someone to take over that little project. Until then, I will continue with developing it. And be developing it, I mean telling people, "Don't write me a long business plan about what you would like to do. Just start doing it, keep me updated and in the conversations, then let's talk and update." We have had a recent influx of volunteers who want to help TNKR in other ways. Jackie Cole is now running our Instagram. She constantly surprises me with the flyers and videos she posts. I made it clear from the ...

Freedom Factory Shareholder Meeting (2015-01-31)

Re: Building something out of nothing Freedom Factory is a very small company, of which I am a shareholder. Yesterday we had our annual shareholder meeting. Freedom Factory is allowing us to "incubate" TNKR until we can stand on our two own feet--or at least crawl on our four hands and feet. (Consumer Rights Watch is in the same position). I owe special thanks to FF CEO 김정호. He is a "true believer" in the cause of freedom, so he is allowing both projects to grow out of FF. That's even though Freedom Factory is a small start up with the CEO, staff and supporters wondering how we are going to achieve our dreams with such a tight budget. So when I say I am so thankful to the volunteers and donors of TNKR, it isn't just lip service. Volunteers--along with Freedom Factory, the Atlas Network, donors--are helping us to create something out of nothing, helping North Korean refugees find their own way and tell their own stories. Like the FF CEO, I also don...

The Casey Lartigue Show!

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