FSI books getting it done

2021-09-30, Freedom Speakers International is currently working on three books by students and speakers in our project. Yesterday we met with a student who previously published her book in Japanese and Korean.

She joined us as a student in 2018. At that time, we talked with her about publishing her book in Korean. At that time, we were started to grow as an organization, with both flourishing tutoring and public speaking projects growing too big for our small budget.

We started working with her on it, but had too many things going on (we had also started a third program plus fundraising was a daily challenge).

Then COVID hit. The tutoring project (which we really love and hope to bring back one day) was too big for us to maintain and the career development also was going to be too much of a challenge, so we decided to focus on public speaking until we grew more sustainable financially and/or after the world reached a new normal.

So we have gone underground during COVID, focusing on books and developing our public speaking project. One book is scheduled to be published in December 2021, another one is scheduled for February 2022, and a third one is scheduled for early next year although we haven't set a date.

We met with the author yesterday to review book covers options, to do a final confirmation about various information in the book, and to celebrate that what we started three years ago as TNKR is now about to happen.

This book will go directly to Amazon, hopefully, we can finish it by early or mid-December.

Yes, you can support our book project, and order all of the books later. We are self-publishing these books, so any support will help.

FSI Books - TNKR

2018, Teach North Korean Refugees

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2021, Freedom Speakers International

"Yoegi Anjuseyo!"

* I have a short reflection in today's Korea Times about an encounter with an unfriendly looking Korean man on the subway. It was a reminder not to be too quick in judging people in Korea. 09-13-2011 16:47 'Yeogi Anjeuseyo!' By Casey Lartigue Jr. The recent incident in which an American English teacher bullied an elderly Korean man and other passengers on the bus reminded me of a more pleasing incident from years ago. I was on the subway, taking the train outside of Seoul for a work assignment. I have the habit of standing on the subway to strategically position myself near the doors in case my stop magically appears. On that particular day, there was a Korean man STARING at me. Not just looking at me, but intensely staring at me. He had an incredible frown on his face. Not just for one stop, but for several stops the guy just kept staring at me. If I had known more Korean then I would have been able to curse him ...

Manufactured cases

My former Cato Institute colleague Bob Levy is profiled by the Associated Press for his role in the challenge to the DC gun ban. One great thing about Levy is that he tells it like it is. As the article quotes: And Levy freely admits the case is manufactured, not one that bubbled up by chance from the district's steady flow of criminal cases involving guns. He wanted presentable plaintiffs to make a case for gun rights, not criminals. "We didn't want crack heads and bank robbers to be poster boys for the Second Amendment," he said. Is there a problem with this case being manufactured? I heard a talking head on the radio complaining a while ago that this case wasn't from real DC residents, that it was from outsiders. What's wrong with that? There may be some times that it takes an outsider to challenge an injustice or bad law. Did DC residents claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was an outsider who should have minded his own business? And about the case being ...

Rich talking back

The rich are talked about very often in negative terms, but how often do the rich respond in kind? Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who inherited most of her money but apparently has also done very well with it, recently railed against class warfare and had some advice for the non-rich : "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she writes. "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working." She complained about politicians raising taxes, regulations that slow investment, and other anti-business policies that harm the poor. "If you want to help the poor and our next generation, make investment, reinvenstment and businesses welcome."

2014-02-14 Yeon-Mi Park`s debut

Yeonmi Park, February 14, 2014, making her debut! Yesterday I was one of the speakers at a special session on North Korean refugees at the Canadian Maple International School. Wow, it was a wonderful time! * Yeon-Mi Park delivered her first major speech in English. She was wonderful! She told her story (35 minute speech without notes), discussed different aspects of North Korea, and then handled questions from students for more than an hour. She did seem to be nervous at the beginning-she took a deep breath just as she started, looked at me, then told her story from her heart. * Returning from the speech, I told Yeonmi that she had star potential. She told me that she didn't believe it, but I told her that the way she handled Q&A and told her story, I would be lucky to have her still returning my phone calls within a year. * The students had many questions. They have been learning about North Korea. They are now reading "Escape from Camp 14" featuring Shin Dong-h...

Get rid of that watermelon!

Part 1: When I was a youngster I used to collect Confederate money, posters and photographs with caricatures of blacks, and "No blacks allowed signs." I loved the money because it was a reminder of how far the sorry Confederacy had fallen. I had one poster of a dark-skinned black boy munching on a watermelon. I would look at that small poster and wonder, "What in the world is wrong with anyone wanting to eat watermelon?" Yes, white people, I'm talking to you. Your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors who thought making fun of blacks for eating watermelon were crazy ! Even people who say that nothing has changed in race relations must acknowledge that the many stereotypes of blacks are no longer prevalent. But then, there are also some ready to remind us of days-gone-by by debunking stuff that doesn't need to be debunked today. According to the Washington Post: The sound you just heard was yet another racial stereotype going kersplat ! Some ...

The Casey Lartigue Show!

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