My favorite team

I'm a sports fan who doesn't care which team wins or loses. When a game is over my regret is not that a particular team didn't win. Rather, I'm sorry that the game is over. After a team wins the Super Bowl or championship I regret that the season is over.

Some people don't believe me when I say this but I mean it. I have been watching football and basketball for so long that I now just enjoy the sport for what they are. I don't remember who won last year's Super Bowl, or any of them since about 1989.

That has now changed! My favorite team? The Philadelphia Eagles! I've always been a Donavan McNabb fan. And now, they have signed Michael Vick off the Ex-Convict list.

Vick is one of the few players I enjoy watching play. I have followed his career since he was in high school. I had just arrived in Virginia when there were news reports about him and a high school superstud, Ronald Curry.

Vick is the only player I would go out of my way to watch whenever his team was playing. After he got caught in the dog-fighting ring I hoped he would be able to get out on weekend furlough and still play football. After all, if a murderer like Willie Horton could get out of jail on weekend furloughs, why not Michael Vick, who would only be a menace to dogs? Clearly, those dogs would be in more danger around me than Vick.

The Eagles were the team willing to step up and take the public relations hit for signing Vick. So they've got my support as long as he is playing for them.

I'm not surprised that one of the 26 teams that said they weren't interested in Vick signed him. There was no reason for a team to admit they wanted Vick before they signed him. The Eagles have the excuse that another quarterback got injured. So many quarterbacks get injured during the year, of course Vick was just a knee injury or bad day by a backup from getting signed. Some reporters may congratulate themselves for calling every team to find out if they were interested in signing Vick, but clearly they were just going through the motions.

CJL

Random photos from today

I went walking around today. Whereas some people like to go walking in the mountains, I enjoy walking around in the city. Well, not D.C. or other cities with many homeless, crazy and/or armed people walking around... * * * Here's where I had lunch today. About $1.90 for a hamburger hamberger. * * * Ha-ha! Bet you never would have guessed that Batman is a drinking place in Korea! * * * Man Clinic? The Koreans walking by seemed to be very curious about why I was taking a photo of a "Man Clinic." They may know something I don't know...Actually, I wasn't curious enough to go in and find out what it was... * * * Right down the street from the Man Clinic...there's a Love Shop! I love the euphemism. "Love Shop" sounds much better than Sex Shop. I'm guessing that if you don't go to the "Love Shop" to buy condoms that you may need to visit the Man Clinic a short time later? * * * Nobo

Teach North Korean Refugees Project

On November 1, we will be holding the 20th "Teach North Korean Refugees Project" session. The project launched in March 2013 when Casey Lartigue Jr. and Lee Eunkoo matched 5 North Korean refugees who were teachers in North Korea with 5 English speaking volunteers. The refugees wanted to improve their English in order to improve their chances to become teachers in South Korea. We met at a Toz in Gangnam, matching them. We have directly matched at least 117 NK refugees and 8 South Koreans who assist NK refugees with 164 English speaking volunteers. We have since hosted numerous sessions with a number of themes matching NK refugees with volunteer English speakers: * Staff at NGOs helping NK refugees (to help refugees working at NGOs and also helping NGOs build up their capacity) * special summer or winter study sessions (for students who have more free time during the break, look for another session in late December and early to mid January 2015) * Bring or recommend a

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

From nothing to something super special (2023-02-10)

FSI has moved into a better institutional neighborhood where we are the poorest in the area. In August 2022, I was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Speakers International (FSI) and in January 2023 FSI achieved incorporation status in South Korea. This has meant that FSI must upgrade operations and structure and I am the one, as chairman and co-president, who will be blamed if it doesn’t happen. I really should not be the chairman, for a variety of reasons, but anyway I am. Eunkoo and I are not the typical executives of a growing organization. In addition to being mainly responsible for building and fundraising for the organization, we are the hands-on leaders who are constantly in contact with North Korean refugee speakers. We look forward to the day we can afford staff to handle many tasks. Until then we can expect to continue having more days like yesterday, even on Eunkoo’s birthday. 2023-02-10 Meeting #1: planning We started Eunkoo’s birthday with a planning

CFE forum on Korea-EU FTA (Korea Herald)

Public forum on FTA on Thursday 2011-07-05 19:21 A conference on economic opportunities and challenges arising from the Korea-EU FTA which came into effect on July 1 will take place in Seoul on Thursday. The conference, taking place at the Koreana Hotel from 2 p.m., will also examine the current economic crisis in Europe and economic development in Korea. The event is being jointly hosted by the Center for Free Enterprise, a Seoul-based free market think-tank, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, a German foundation for the promotion of individual freedom which has offices around the world including in Seoul. “We picked the date hoping National Assembly members wouldn’t find a way to delay the agreement going into effect. So this is really timely because we are holding this less than a week after the agreement went into effect,” said Casey Lartigue Jr., manager of international relations at the CFE. Speakers at the conference titled “Economic Freedom

The Casey Lartigue Show!

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