2017-02-21 Leaving the TNKR cave to meet the Mayor of Mapo-gu

With the mayor of mapo-gu (standing on my right)

A great thing about having an office? You have a place to invite guests to meet you.

A bad thing about having an office? I don't want to go out to meet other people.

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During a particularly unstable time in TNKR's history, I was shuttling between the Freedom Factory office near the National Assembly and the temporary TNKR office near Itaewon Station. Some days, I would start the day at Freedom Factory, head over to Itaewon, then go back to Freedom Factory.

Now we have our own office. There are some days that I don't leave the office and have even slept at the office so I could get to work when I wake up. When I go out, it feels like I have been in a cave, but caveman style like that feeling of playing my favorite video games for weeks. It is more difficult to get me out for meetings these days.

But today, I did go out for a meeting.

Today we met the Mayor of Mapo-gu, he wanted to hear about TNKR. Apparently someone at the mayor's office got into trouble because the mayor found out that there is an incredible organization in his district that is being run by volunteers helping North Korean refugees. A staffer rushed to collect news clips about TNKR. They clearly had done their research about us.

We moved into the area July 2016, so it only took them seven months to find us.

Apparently the mayor was like, "What? This is happening in my backyard, and no one told me about it? What the hey?"

Well, those probably weren't the mayor's exact words, but anyway, he now knows TNKR.

After the meeting with the mayor, we talked in more detail with one of the staff members. I don't expect that anything will ever come out of the meeting.

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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

Still writing (Korea Times, 2023-12-19)

Still writing by Casey Lartigue Jr. The Korea Times December 19, 2023 https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2023/12/626_365284.html

2019-12-19 Interview with Japanese reporter

"The interview is the honeymoon, publication is the divorce." --Shinae Chun I had a GREAT and FUN interview today with a reporter from Japan. Let's hope publication will also be great! www.lovetnkr.og

Back in America, 4 days and counting

I got back a few days ago, I'm still unpacking... Some of the highlights so far: * Friday morning I was in the audience for a CNN/The Root discussion about being Young and Black in America . As a veteran of so many of these Washington talking events I am less than enthusiastic about them these days. Still, I bumped into a few friends, some of whom are neither young nor black. The discussion seemed so 1980s, with the panelists trying to figure out how to politically empower young black people. I guess it was appropriate then that the head of the NAACP was there. His most irrelevant concern was about hate talk radio...or I guess Rush Limbaugh being on the air all these years explains the high level of black-on-black crime. 20 years later, how is the Stop the Violence movement working out? The highlight of this particular panel was running into old friend David Plotz, who is now editor of Salon Magazine. I don't think I've seen him since college but he recognized me. I forgot...

Michael Vick ain't got nuthin on me!!!

After football player Michael Vick admitted that he had been running a dog-fighting business I wrote that he was an idiot. If he was going to engage in such activity he should have gone to Indonesia or somewhere else. He certainly had the money to do so at that time. If he knew then what he knows now then he would have spent $10 million to run his dogfighting ring in Manila. Today I did something that probably not even Michael Vick ever did: I ate dog meat. I never expected that I would do so. It is a bit scandalous because Koreans don't just kill the dogs and eat them. Rather, they will beat them to death while they are still alive. That allegedly is to get the adrenaline flowing which allegedly makes the meat more tender which allegedly improves a man's stamina. I had told a friend that I wanted to give it a try. But as we sat down to eat I said: "I want to try this but don't give me any details until after we are finished eating." It just looked like regular me...

The Casey Lartigue Show!

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