If you like maps as I do (and even if you aren't a political junkie) I'm confident you'll find this collection of interactive electoral maps from 1840-2008 worth a look: Voting America, from the University of Richmond. They show how voting has changed by county since that time. The "cinematic maps" feature is the most accessible and probably also the coolest feature.

For those of you paying attention, you know that the new UR president is Ed Ayers, who himself is a technological pioneer among American historians. This is surely up his alley.

Beach council rules Buddhists' cannot hold services in home | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

The City of Virginia Beach has decided that the Buddhist monks cannot continue to hold services in their house. But it has nothing to do with violating the free practice of religion. Nothing to see here, move along.

Beach council rules Buddhists' cannot hold services in home | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com

"The City Council's decision had nothing to do with religion, Wood said. "In my opinion, it was a land-use issue, not a religious issue," he said.

City Councilwoman Barbara Henley agreed. "I have no belief that the city is intolerant and that the people in the city are intolerant," she said."

Oh, of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with religion to forbid worship practices on private property and there is just not a shred of intolerance in far-right Virginia Beach. The city is always concerned about careful and well-thought out land use. Just look at the sprawling wasteland of endless chainstore surburban sprawl and decaying and underutitlized apartment complexes. No land use issues here! That was careful planning to secure the human element here in Christian America.

It's hard to imagine the Beach similarly restricting Christianity in anyway (including the city logo, which prominently features a cross as a "landmark of our nation's beginning" along with those other American landmarks, a lighthouse and...the sun?).



Imagine the uproar if there was an attempt to shut down a Christian service--Pat Robertson himself might have to call down the wrath of god to cleanse such an act.

Which brings me to most amusing quote in the article, from an alarmed neighbor:

"The religious institution doesn't fit into their neighborhood of farms and homes, said Louis Cullipher, a neighbor.

Other residents complained that the temple drew too much traffic and large crowds for the Sunday services.

If the monks were allowed to continue using their home as a temple, more and more people would come there to worship, said Daniel Franken, another neighbor.

Franken said he feared the temple could grow to the size of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.

"Where is it going to end?" Franken asked. "What will happen to this neighborhood when this place outgrows itself?""

Yes, indeed, what if?

What if this tiny service of a decidedly non-mainstream religious practice in a home was suddenly to magically catapult to the multi-million dollar status of a charismatic mega-church with a multi-million dollar broadcasting arm which has foisted its particularistic doctrine on the public sphere and effectively pursued exclusionary and downright crazy politics while abusing the public airwaves to raise money for its continuous operation?

U.S. Intelligence and Iraq WMD

It is always nice when the documents reveal what you just know is true, especially if you are a historian.

This appears to be the case with the Bush administrations manufacturing of a case for war with Iraq, as new documents show that intelligence reports were just shaped to match the Bush demands*

read the summaries and the pdfs of the documents here.

U.S. Intelligence and Iraq WMD

"Washington D.C., August 22, 2008 - The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq, according to a documents posting on the Web today by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados.

The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the "White Paper" ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002.

A similar comparison between a declassified draft and the final version of the British government's "White Paper" on Iraq weapons of mass destruction adds to evidence that the two nations colluded in the effort to build public support for the invasion of Iraq. Dr. Prados concludes that the new evidence tends to support charges raised by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan and by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its long-delayed June 2008 "Phase II" report on politicization of intelligence."




...

"We shall offer only a few examples here. First is the case of the CIA white paper, “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs.” That document is dated October 2002 [Document 1] and was issued on October 4. It has been represented as a distillation of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq published two days earlier, with the most sensitive, secret information stripped out. Posted here today is the major portion of the text of the same paper in draft [Document 2], as it existed in July 2002. This document demonstrates that the white paper existed long before the NIE was even requested by Congress. In fact the illustrations in the July version are the same as those in the final report. A close comparison of the text shows, further, that much of the argumentation is identical, and that the differences between the two are strictly in the nature of separating text to insert more charges or to sharpen them. The entire product has the character of rhetoric. Little of the text shows the kind of approach characteristic of intelligence analysis. The fact that this document was in preparation at the CIA in July indicates that the Bush administration was actively engaged in a process of building support for war months ahead of the time it has previously been understood to have done so. In fact evidence exists that the CIA white paper was commissioned as early as May 2002. (Note 7)

This point is made even sharper by recently declassified Department of Defense documents, including a memorandum from the OUSDP that details the kinds of information seen as desirable to obtain from intelligence in order to strengthen the case for war against Iraq [Document 3]. The timing of this document suggests that this text was a response to the draft CIA white paper, created at a point when Pentagon critics of CIA reporting were actively pressing their case against the agency’s refusal to accept arguments that Saddam Hussein was allied with Al Qaeda. Changes in the CIA white paper between its July draft and the final document track closely with the OUSDP comments. The net impression is that the CIA white paper was rewritten to conform to administration preferences. If so, U.S. intelligence a priori made itself a tool of a political effort, vitiating the intelligence function and confirming the presence of a politicized process. The specific analytic failures on Iraq intelligence become much less significant in such a climate, especially in that they all yielded intelligence predictions of exactly the kind the Bush administration wanted to hear.

This impression is strengthened, and suspicions of collusion broadened, when the record of the British government’s white paper on Iraqi WMD is laid side by side with that of the CIA. In the course of British official investigations of the antecedents to the war, and the death of physicist David Kelly, a draft of the British white paper was released that is dated June 20 [Document 4]. As in the American case, the Joint Intelligence Committee, which originated this document and plays a role similar to that of the National Intelligence Council in the U.S., modified its draft to issue a final version on September 24, 2002, that was even more somber [Document 5]. There is a considerable record on the Blair government’s efforts to shape the content of the British white paper in directions not supported by the intelligence. "

* maybe Bush administration intelligence figures should write college administrative reports...

Classes start up again today, which confirms that the space time continuum has been fractured since it seems like we just got back from Korea yesterday.

We went out with some of the new and existing faculty, Lark had a good time meeting everybody.


Yes she is even cuter than she was last time you saw her. Here's another in her signature polka dotted pjs:




This semester I am teaching classes on the New South, the history of Virginia, and a survey on the United States. I am offering a new class on "Space and Place in the United States" to incoming freshmen which I am looking forward to. My research into Latinization in Appalachia inspired me to teach this class. My syllabi will be online on my webpage if you are interested in seeing how they are constructed.

Being back on campus has given me the opportunity (finally!) to go check on the school's beehives. My personal hives in three separate yards around Tidewater have done well despite my absence and a deliberate lack of chemical treatment (or maybe helped by it). Set the bees up with enough space and good forage and they will do fine.

The school's hives had a much different experience. 10 of the hives are dead. It is impossible to tell why at this point since the comb has been completely destroyed by wax moths. The hives are all filled with worms and moths.

Three swarms did survive quite vigorously though, as I will describe in a moment.

One very troubling thing was that after processing the honey supers last year while I was away, the students left the equipment out for the bees to clean up. That in itself is a good idea, but where it became troubling is that they never returned to pack away the equipment for the winter. The result is that 100% of the honey supers and the comb (the most valuable part because of the energy demands on the bees to make it) is ruined. yikes...cat away mice will play and all of that. Looks like I will have to spend much more time on how to care for equipment next time I teach the class.

Here is the overgrown yard as you approach it:





A primer in how NOT to store bee equipment:





At some point in the last year, three of the hives swarmed. There may have been more, but I know there were three because the bees moved into the equipment left piled in the yard. Each hive presented its own challenge, it was fun to see what had transpired. Fun, but also a bit dismaying given the work involved to make things right.

The first hive was just a normal swarm that moved into a single deep hive body that helpfully had been sitting correctly placed on a screen bottom board. In other words, this was a hive set up as it should be. This hive was vigorous, healthy, productive, and very gentle. All I had to do was add some honey supers on top and it is good to go.

here it is:




The second hive was also very lively but a bit more challenging. They had settled into another stack of equipment and built up four medium supers in height. The stack had no bottom board and was just sitting on a couple of cinder blocks. The bees didn't seem to mind, and they actually filled the hollow spot of the cinderblock with resinous propolis, waterproofing it. That was actually very neat to see (the pictures didn't come out).

here is the hive when I walked up to it:



The inside was a bit of a mess because the frames were left cock-eyed in the boxes. Bees like only a certain kind of space (called "bee space") and anything bigger than an 1/8 inch is filled in with wax or propolis. These bees wasted no time doing that. It was great fun untangling that mess.

It didn't help that this very large and vigorous hive was also mean as hell. Perhaps they requeened themselves and got a bit more aggressive, which happens sometimes, or perhaps they were just ornery. I got stung a large number of times all at once and finally had to put on gloves just to get through the thing.



Thinking of you, dear reader, I took this opportunity to take a picture of me getting stung. This was on my right hand so I had fish out my camera and take the picture at with my left hand, which gave the bee time to really get its stinging done. You can see the stinger in my hand and the bee pulling away.






(p.s.- kids, don't try this at home)

The third hive looked a bit more complicated on the outside and it was. Here is the outside with the bees hanging out since they have filled in all the space inside:



First of all, this swarm picked a really ill-thought out pile of equipment mismatched and in no logical order. There were three screen bottom boards that were left at angles, allowing the bees to make a truly magnificent mess of things as far as this beekeeper is concerned. No worries for the bugs though, these bees just filled in all of the open spaces with wax and propolis. The boxes were also all empty, which means the bees just built the hive the way they would have if this was a hollow tree. It is quite beautiful to behold. But there was a mess when I pried it open, though it makes sense to the bees.




These bees were very gentle. And why not?--they got to make their hive just as they liked it. I enjoyed having the chance to deal with something this messy. I basically just put some regular boxes with frames on top and will wait for these bees to move up into some semblance of order.

Here is how things stood once I got the three hives a bit more orderly. I'll go back in a couple of days and see how things look.

We got Lark in daycare, which is an amazingly difficult process. There are waiting lists that stretch for one or two years. She is on the waiting list at one place since her birth and she still is not off of that one. It is amazing to me that more daycares don't open given the crushing demand for them. After much agonized searching we did finally find her one that seems ok.

Our day care is almost 200 bucks a week, which is no small potatoes. It was possible to find daycare for $65 a week, but that is in neighborhoods where it is not safe to walk around (of which there are plenty in Norfolk_. The extra money suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

What amazed us is the utter garbage that they feed the kids everyday. This is a daycare affiliated with a prominent and well-respected children's hospital too, you might expect them to know better. Especially nowdays, when the US is witnessing an entirely avoidable epidemic of childhood obesity. They claim the meals are "well balanaced, nutritious, and age-appropriate" when, in fact, they are all prime examples of the contemporary American crisis of fast food and processed foods better called crap.

The breakfasts they serve include morning meals featuring worthless cereals like Captain Crunch, Frosted Flakes, and Apple Jacks. Of course, we can feed her breakfast at home before dropping her off so she can avoid the sugar bomb in the morning. Lunch is a minefield as well, including french fries at least twice a week, tater tots, fish sticks, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, and so on. Good grief. The snacks are all sugar cookies and other things with sugar. Or with salt.

The only way we are allowed to bring in our own food if it is both packaged and has an expiration date. And/or we need a religious reason not to eat certain foods.

They might not understand nutrition in the South, but they do get religious zealotry.

We just spent a week at the Clifftop Appalachian string band festival, which is definitely a highlight of my year. Clifftop is in Fayette County, West Virginia and is basically a weeklong, round the clock jam. People camp for the week and play music nonstop. Hard to beat that. This year's festival was no exception for good times, a chance to see a bunch fo old friends, and time to play as many tunes as I could squeeze into a week. It was especially welcome to get to play so much old time music after a year away from festivals. Playing Korean music is great but nothing beats the singular perfection of old time music. Couple that with the fact that best old time musicians in the country flock to Clifftop and there is music-making constantly in all directions and it is really an ideal, perfect experience.

Lark had the good fortune and good timing to be born during Clifftop last year, which means she turned one at the festival this year. She camped out for the first time and did great. We dressed her in a special one-eyar old hanbul (Korean traditional dress) for her birthday party. (At least we were told it was for a one year old, it was a bit big).



We kept her in the hanbuk looking cute so we could sing her happy birthday and then we freed her. A bunch of friends came over and we played some old time Appalachian songs for kids and some fellow travelers-- tunes like "flop eared mule", "What will you do with a baby-o", "skip to my lou", "say darling say" and a bunch more.



Lark had a good time, she played along on a ukelele that some friends of ours gave her for a gift.



Now the summer is winding down, only a couple more weeks before classes start. I am going to go hiking and get another section done on the Appalachian Trail over the next week and then will be back finalizing things for the semester. So, no postings for a week or so but then back to what passes for regularity around here.

I haven't spent much time adjusting back to life in the U.S. since I've been too busy. Part of 'adjusting" means "unpacking" but that is taking a back seat to everything else going on.

I spent several days driving around Appalachia taking pictures, then spent over a week doing research at the National Archives. That was taking pictures too, since the fastest and cheapest way to copy the documents is to photograph them.

Its been a whirlwind, which is the main reason that Nunal has not inched forward.

I've been taking pictures of the Latino re-creation of social space in Appalachian communities. I found some great images, and, nor unimportantly, got to eat some great food on the way. I think the best taco I had in Virginia so far is at the La Mexicana taqueria in Rocky Mount, which is a little town south of Roanoke. A close second was a taco truck parked in a strip mall in Manasass. The best tamale by far was from Taqueira Gonzalaz in Asheville, NC.

Here is a photo I think perfectly captures what is going on in the South today: Taqueria y Tienda El Rosario, painted in the colors of the Mexican flag, sharing a strip mall in Collinsville, VA with Southern Gun, Inc.



Here is a great Mexican graphic in Winston-Salem. NC




Here are some fake snakehead boots for sale at a tienda in Martinsville, Virginia



And this was interesting to see in Roanoke--a combination Pentecostal church and auto mechanic's shop.

Former Korean president Roh seems to have been taking a page from Bush administration's playbook by deep sixing information

INSIDE JoongAng Daily: "Tensions between the incumbent and former presidential offices escalated yesterday over the allegation that Roh Moo-hyun’s aides moved the main computer server out of the Blue House on the eve of President Lee Myung-bak’s inauguration.

The Blue House claim the move put a significant amount of sensitive national information out of reach of the incoming leader.

“The removal by Roh aides of presidential records is an undeniably illegal action,” Blue House spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said yesterday. “Out of respect for the former president, we have asked for the return of the data directly and indirectly. However, the request has been repeatedly denied.”

Lee said it’s extremely worrisome that the records Roh has are originals, not copies. “As soon as our investigation ends, the National Archives of Korea will take official action regarding this incident,” Lee said.

Quoting current administration sources, the JoongAng Ilbo reported Monday that before vacating the Blue House earlier this year, Roh’s presidential aides moved the main computer server of the presidential office to Bongha Village in South Gyeongsang, where Roh now lives. Only about one percent of the information on how Roh governed the nation was handed over to the Lee administration, Lee aides complain."

The Fourth of July always means that my neighborhood is filled with constant fireworks explosions and the smell of hot dogs on the grill, hotdogs being mandatory on the 4th and fireworks being legal in Virginia-- and being especially legal this year since they just cleared a whole range of more robust fireworks for public use. At the oceanfront in Virginia Beach the displays people light off can rival the official city display. Here in this neighborhood, without sand and ocean around to catch sparks, the homeowner in me is a bit less excited about the fireworks. But at least my old neighbor moved, taking his devilish kid with him, a bottle rocket firing little fiend that terrorized Mother Maybelle. The people who moved in have been barbecuing chicken all day, superior to hot dogs in all respects.

More worrisome than the fireworks is the smoke from the huge fire in the Great Dismal Swamp (which is just south of my house and stretches into North Carolina). the smoke continues to blanket the region. Here is the smoke forecast for today. I have five beehives down on a friend's property right next to the Dismal Swamp, so I am wondering what the smoke is doing to the bees. Smoke makes bees eat and definitely will not encourage them to forage, so I have some concerns. Those bees make particularly good, very dark Great Dismal Swamp honey. I am hoping that they are pulling through.

The local 4th of July parade had an Iraq war double amputee veteram as Grand Marshal, hard not to feel the really heartrending and useless tragedy of this.

"The parade’s hero could have been straight out of central casting, too: Army Lt. Col. Greg Gadson, a son of Chesapeake remembered for his football prowess at Indian River High School and again at West Point.

Gadson, the grand marshal, spent the parade atop a silver Corvette convertible as sleek- looking as his prosthetic legs. Injured in a bombing in Iraq last May, Gadson recovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

He lost both legs above the knee.

He remains on active duty – he hit the 20-year mark in June – and is now stationed at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia. In addition to intensive physical therapy, Gadson is pursuing a master’s degree in public management at Georgetown University.

At a presentation after the parade at Lakeside Park , John Dukes choked up introducing his former player.

“This is a very special person,” Coach Dukes said after leaning over and kissing Gadson’s head. He presented the soldier with a Braves football jersey like the one he played in from 1980 to 1983: blue and white, No. 44.

Gadson spoke briefly.

“I am proud to be an American,” he said to cheers. “I’m really proud to be from Chesapeake. I represent you all. I came from you all. You all sent me.”

His parents still live in Chesapeake, and Gadson said the sense-of-place he got growing up helped him overcome his injuries. “The reason I couldn’t quit was I remembered where I came from.”

Afterward, he explained that the community – its teachers, coaches, and neighbors – molded him, teaching him discipline, dedication and teamwork. “Your neighbors knew who you were, and if you stepped out of line, they were going to let your parents know,” he said with a smile.

The Fourth of July doesn’t have more meaning for him now, he said, but he thinks differently about words such as “sacrifice” and “freedom.”

He acknowledges that his physical freedom – to walk or drive or do chores, without a second thought – will never be the same.

“It’s much more complicated,” he said.

“I’m OK with it. I don’t have any animosity or anger. I don’t have any regrets. I’m proud of my service.”"

Other than that things are as usual in Hampton Roads. Double homicides within four miles of each other in Chesapeake, an attempted armed robbery in Hampton ends up in one dead and two wounded robbers, and then a there was a shootout last night in Isle of Wight that included this perfectly named individual:

"Two of the men involved in a shooting at a Sonic restaurant in Carrollton Thursday are in stable condition and one has been released from the hospital.

James T. Outlaw, a 20-year-old from Smithfield, was released from Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News Friday, said hospital spokesman Peter Glacola. Jamario Louis Harper and Cedric Donell Smith, both 19-year-olds from Newport News, remained in stable condition at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Sandra Miller. She said she did not know when they would be released.

The three men were wounded during a gunfire exchange Thursday that resulted in the death of Tyrone Ramone Seaborne, an 18-year-old from Smithfield. Officers with the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office recovered two guns from the scene, where shell casings indicated a possible third gun’s involvement, Don Robertson, an Isle of Wight County spokesman, said in an e-mail.

Harper and Smith were in a burgundy Jeep Cherokee and Seaborne and Outlaw were in a white Honda Accord when the gunfire exchange occurred, he said.

No charges had been filed as of Friday afternoon but the sheriff plans to consult with the Commonwealth’s Attorney Monday to determine what charges will be filed, Robertson said."

Perhaps an argument about the comparative MPG of the jeep and the Honda Accord was the cause?

Funny, as I have been considering other areas of Hamnpton Roads to move to, Isle of Wight had struck me as an oasis in this violence saturated region. Nope.

On the drive back here to Norfolk my dogs had some issues figuring out their configuration in the truck. At first Mother Maybelle refused to make room, leaving Wee Oscar to find a spot sitting on top of her. This lasted well through Indiana and Kentucky.

Looking out the window:


Sleeping:



By the time we got to West Virginia, about 10 hours into the drive, things had been sorted out.



My Southern regionalism students at Sogang might be interested to tune into the station I listen to when I drive through Kentucky, the Morehead State University radio station, which has this great bluegrass and old time show hosted by Jesse Wells. I played with this guy once at Mt Airy several years back, he is a great fiddler. Impeccable taste in music too, you can hear the station on this webpage via this link.

Nunal is going to stay alive as a blog, but obviously Seoul has so much more to offer than Norfolk that there is no comparison, and posting will be less frequent.

Not that life isn't every bit as exciting and interesting:

Seoul: hike a mountain in my neighborhood to the first Pure Land Buddhist temple in Korea, or perhaps pick another mountain and another beautiful temple to visit.

Norfolk: Cut the grass my renter neglected to cut for 10 months, leaving the yard to look something like the Illinois prairie circa 1805.

Seoul: Hop on a subway across town and for 900 won travel to see or do X, Y, or Z.

Norfolk: Fill my truck's gas tank for 4 bucks a gallon and wonder which chop shop gives the best rates for one of my kidneys.

Back in the USA and it definitely is striking how you can leave for a year and return with nary a ripple felt.

It didn't seem that way across the Pacific, but then again part of that feeling of timelessness may be staying a few days at my folks' house, where time itself comes to a grinding standstill...

But I did, as intended, get some good barbarcoa tacos in Pilsen (the Mexican heart of Chicago) and tonight will catch a Cajun band up from Louisiana playing in Grant Park.

In the a.m. I am off to drive to Virginia (16+ hour drive, for those of you thinking in Korea distances, this would be like driving in laps around Korea for a couple of days).

I just got an email from someone in Seoul who read a piece I wrote for the Korea Times about learning the kayagum. I didn't even know it had been run, though it was over a week ago, and I am am happy to see it was published. You can read it here.

We are leaving Korea early in the a.m., not having a whole lot of deep thoughts at the moment aside from wondering how exactly we ended with quite so much stuff over here...my permanent condition it seems.

Nunal will continue on in a new world form, but there will be a bit of delay posting since we arrive in Chicago and after an abbreviated period of recovery from a 12 flight with infant in lap we will be driving to Virginia, a 16 hour endeavor enlivened by the return of our dogs to our life, Wee Oscar and Mother Maybelle.

That is, assuming we do recover from a 12 flight with infant in our laps, which remains to be seen, only to survive a 16 hour trip with two insane dogs in our lap.

This just in: the arrest of the head of the internet site distributing information about the anti-beef rallies has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his webpage is distributing information about the anti-beef rallies. It is all about movie piracy, which Korean officials are shocked, shocked to know has been going on.

INSIDE JoongAng Daily

The arrest of Nowcom head Mun Yong-sik has stirred up the already angry masses who have been staging protests against President Lee Myung-bak for the past month.

Prosecutors arrested Mun Monday night on charges of illegally distributing pirated films through online storage services that Nowcom operates. The storage services, PD Box and Club Box, have 9 million and 8 million registered members, respectively.

Nowcom also operates the self-broadcasting Web site Afreeca (www.afreeca.com), which has become one of the most popular Internet forums for protesters to get information on rallying points and riot police presence. Demonstrators also use the site to upload footage from the anti-U.S. beef rallies that they recorded with camera phones and camcorders.

Some say this is what’s really behind Mun’s arrest.

Culture critic Jin Jung-gwon, who is also an emcee of “Color TV,” a political program aired on Afreeca.com, said Afreeca made it possible for people to rally both online and off.

“Frankly, we have all downloaded pirated movies once or twice in our lives,” Jin wrote on an Afreeca Internet forum. “In that case, everyone should be arrested.”

Nowcom also challenged the government’s motives.

“The arrests naturally make us question whether the government authorities are conducting this probe with a politically motivated intention to prevent the expansion of candlelight vigils,” the company said in a statement posted on Afreeca.com.

“Nowcom never helped Internet users infringe upon copyrights of materials either,” the statement said."

here is a great stat:

"He said that users are offered free storage services, but the services charge them by the number of bytes they download. This, he said, amounts to illegal distribution of pirated films. He also said the probe found that there were up to 9,000 pirated films stored in Mun’s service."

My students download all movies and tell me that they only go see a movie in the theatre if it is special (and they will download it thereafter too).

But it has definitely been noticeable that DVD sellers on the street have vanished, or at least are much harder to find. There used to be one every block in certain areas and now they are scarce. I wonder if Lee has been cracking down on piracy as another concession, along with 30 month old poisonous beef.

Having discovered that new eel place we have been doing our heroic best to eat there as often as we can before leaving, if only to get more little checks off our Frequent Eel Eaters card. We will bequeath that hard-earned but not quite filled in card to our friend helping us get all of our stuff and the lil Buddha off to the airport.

What a prize, a partially filled in Frequent Eel Eaters card. It is almost as good as the clothes drying rack I found on the curb (perfect), the large number of paper lotus lanterns given to us at the lantern festival parade, and a broken cuckoo clock I found on the street and brought home with some vague idea of fixing (this was months ago, it hasn't been fixed yet, nor fixed itself I should add). It just needs one reglued cuckoo, I think.

That has been given the executive veto and won't be returning with us to Virginia.

At the eel place, a man who was the cousin of the owner came over and told us (as much as we gathered) that he was buying our dinner. It helped that he was drunk. Sure enough, he did indeed pay for our dinner, which was really nice since we had never seen the guy before and likely won't ever again (though I do have his card).

And, we still got the checks on the Frequent Eel Eaters card...

This being Korea, we also had to pay for our rice (which is 1000 won a bowl = a buck), which we had ordered after the payer split.

One thing that is curious here is that every meal all restaurants will serve and refill innumerable side dishes (called panchan) at no charge (including about everything you can imagine ingredient wise -- various salads, baked fish, octopus salad, acorn squash, steamed spinach, German potato salad, creamed corn (always a question mark about those), little dried fish in sesame oil, many, many, many kinds of kimchi, and so on and on). But order a bowl of rice and you get charged 1000 won.

Rice is actually fairly expensive here. This is good for the Korean rice farmer, and makes you wonder why Koreans want to open their market to American rice via the FTA.

That mention of silkworm larvae caught my eye because just earlier today, as I was musing about leaving in a week, I was thinking of what things the Nunal eyeball really should cover. Silkworm larvae (called bundaegi) immediately popped into my head since they are sold absolutely everywhere on the streets in Seoul. It is difficult, in fact, not to smell them all of the time. Not a nice smell. I think I may have mentioned them before. In any case, toady we were down at the horse track with a friend in town and I took a picture at the top of the subway stairs.



And at the bottom. When I say that they are everywhere this gives you an idea.



Beautiful day at the track, albeit unwinning for yours truly. Here is a picture of Lark and I enjoying the races. This is the first time she has sat on my shoulders.

Last night I went to a concert of much-loved Korean protest songs from the early 1980s democracy movement. Apparently everybody knows these songs. I had heard one of them somewhere while here as it was familiar.

The show was run by my friend Cecilia Kim who also set up that concert last month at the Buddhist temple in Cheonan (she is a composer and music professor here in Seoul and definitely has a hand in a lot of things). Lucky for her and for the show, this concert (which was planned long before) just happened to play for three nights during the non-stop rallies against US beef and President Lee. Good timing, to say the least. The rallies are happening only a few blocks from the venue in Central Seoul. So the music struck an even stronger chord than usual. The concert was an amazingly intense experience for the people there, who sang along, demanded multiple encores, and were visibly moved by the experience. When people left the show, they walked to a table and got candles and walked over to the rally.

here is a bad picture of it:



It was entirely in Korean so I missed all the meaning of the lyrics, sad to say. Cecilia had invited me to play in the concert but I didn't want to tie up my free time during last few weeks here with rehearsals so I begged off. But it would have been something to play in a show that elicited that level of response.

I got to talking to an American musician now living in Beijing who wanted to walk over to the rally to buy a pair of light-up mad cow horns. He had been at the rally before but neglected to get the horns.

I myself have been steering clear of the rallies. Something about hundreds of thousands of people protesting the relationship of their country with the US made me think that I didn't need to monkey around over there. Skye had decided that she would just claim to be French should the merde hit the fan. Being fluent in French helps. Me...well I would not have much to say besides a few Spanglish words before the crowd trampled me. Or so was my thought. But I tagged along with the other guy and figured I would stay on the edge (thinking of Miss Audrey, Hank Williams' wife, singing ""Something got a hold of me"--I'll just look around...)

Anyway, it was quite something to see. City Hall plaza has been totally taken over by people, impromptu carts and tents, live broadcasters, and many people milling around with candles, picnicking, and so on. Really an amazing transformation. (There are a couple of articles about the trampled square here and here)

All of my pictures of the rally are terrible. It was really dark and I just had my dinky camera which takes bad pictures in the dark.

We did get some mad cow horns. The horns come with a Korean flag to wave. Here is a seller



You have to appreciate the speed with which this has been commodified. There were dozens of people selling the horns. (I guess they can sell them again when the antichrist returns to earth and there are more rallies.)


Here is me with some horns on next to a paper mache statue of a bull charging with some injured man on top. This picture is worthless.


marginally better pic of the bull (the flash ones were worse, so this is what I have)



Much better picture of the horns, modeled by Miss Lark back at home this morning



We were leaving the rally at City hall Plaza and turned to go home when I figured I should at least go check out the scene toward the palace up the street, where the police barricades were. This seemed like too big an happening in modern Korean history not to have least seen it. Further up there roads there bands, people selling food, and then a large mass of people with flags and lots of chants. I did see several signs with the picture of the US ambassador Alexander Vershbow. It occurred to me to wonder how many Americans could identify any ambassador to or from the United States.



I encountered zero hostility and generally people seemed good natured. There were many thousands of people there but nothing like the pictures from earlier in the week when it was an order of magnitude bigger. They do seem to be having an impact, as the beef deal might be renegotiated and the president is definitely in retreat and reconfigure mode.

Here is an interesting Asia Times story about the tenor of these protests.

One interesting thing to read is

"But things aren't so lovely all the time. As the protests have stretched into weeks, the familiar protest tools such as steel pipes and rocks have also surfaced, spelling an omen for possible violence and bloodshed.

For example, Friday will mark the sixth anniversary of the death of two Korean middle school girls who were run over by a US armored vehicle - a very emotional issue for many South Koreans. What is also worrisome is that the month of June in South Korea is traditionally a season for annual labor protests.

Already some labor groups have designated June 16 as a walk-out day. Then comes June 25, the Korean War Memorial Day. It's likely that the rightist groups will take to the streets at that time to protest against the leftist groups, who they believe are fooled by Pyongyang and sympathetic towards North Korea.

There will be many more pickets, chants, roses, candles, silkworm larvae and DVDs - it won't be a quiet month. "

Buddhas, Buddhas, y Mas Buddhas

One of my favorite things to do here has been to visit Buddhist temples and Buddhas. If you have been visiting this blog with any frequency you have probably figured that out. No shortage of them here, luckily. Shake a stick and there is a temple worth visiting and a Buddha worth admiring.

I have some Buddha images that haven't yet appeared on Nunal I have been meaning to post, so here is a surfeit of big Buddhas in Seoul. If I really get a chance I will post some photos of myriad little Buddhas.

Well, maybe just one photo of little Buddhas. This is from Samseongsa (there are two sets of these flanking the main Buddha image:



Now on to the big Buddhas

This one is actually in our neighborhood, just north of where we live on a parallel street, at the base of a mountain that is really one of the foothills of Bukhansan. As I have developed a more complete understanding of the bus system (which is entirely in Korean, unlike the subway, so a bit mysterious), I have a new appreciation for how close and connected the southern end of Bukhansan National Park is to our neighborhood and how fascinating the neighborhoods are heading north from here.

Anyway, this is called the White Buddha of Bodo Pavilion, the Avalokitesavara Buddha. It is about 15 feet tall. The white color is made from burned clam shells, the gold is gold. This Buddha was painted white when the Japanese invaded Korea in 1592.

There may not be a more important Buddha than this in Seoul. In fact, the city was founded because of this Buddha. Yi Seonggye, founder of the Joeson Dynasty, prayed here when he was thinking of choosing Seoul (Hanyang) as his capital.

I've been over to the White Buddha a bunch of times and there are always people praying to him in the small space before him.

For such an important Buddha, it does not have a very auspicious position in modern Seoul. It is tucked in against a mountain across from a stream, but there is a large elevated highway, a busy street, and a tunnerl there as well. So, not the most peaceful spot, unless you are standing right in front of or next to the Buddha. To get down to the stream you have to ask the wizened old lady in a small storefont Buddhist shrine nearby to unlock a chainlink fence. Or you can walk over it on a bridge that takes you right to the temple.

Here is a view from the road, across the stream.



A bit closer



One of the coolest things about the white Buddha is how it was carved onto the rock, which is concave:




Here is another great Buddha, this one is further in Bukhansan, reachable only after an uphill hike for a few kilometers. It is a huge off-white Buddha carved from stone. You can see it from the next ridge over. I think it must be at least as large as the one from Bonguensa I posted pictures of back at Christmastime.

Here it is from a distant ridge. I saw this Buddha (and took this picture) while on a hike once and was determined to go find the route to it the next time, which took a bit of doing but did happen.



Here closer



Here in the temple complex, for scale



This is a nice temple, part of it is built into a cave.


In yet another part of Bukhansan is this famous and very old rock carved Buddha at Seungga Temple. The temple was founded in 756 and then destroyed a few times, most recently during the Korean War.

This temple, which is stunningly huge in scale, is about an hour's hike up the mountain on a path like this:


Then you get to the base of these stairs:


which leads to this huge pagoda.



Then more stairs to the really gorgeous main temple



then from there yet more stairs, steep, steep stairs:



and finally you get to National Treasure Number 215, the seated Buddha carved into this huge rock

I received 21 (of 22 coming in) research papers from my graduate students yesterday, 15+ pages, amounting to something akin to 2 reams of paper. They are all on some aspect of globalization, and I was struck my the creativity of approach and outlook of all of the topics. The optimism and internationalism of all of the students, that was really something that surprised me. I expected harsh criticism of the U.S., and heard even less of it than I had anticipated. Reading through the papers I have been impressed by the research, so it will be an time well spent.

I guess we can see what it takes to get the attention of the American media. There have been massive anti-beef protests for the past couple of weeks, with hundreds of thousands of people, but when they finally got to be the biggest protests since the 1987 pro-democracy protests (which ended authoritarian rule here), the New York Times reports on it. Nobody ever said they were cutting edge.

The size of the protests now is really starting to signal something truly significant. The reports are that somewhere between 70,000 and 700,000 people were there, likely somewhere in the middle between those numbers. I was in Central Seoul yesterday afternoon and was really astonished by the number of riot police around. I didn't even get to see the barricades they were building out of shipping containers. According to the JoonAng Daily:

"The police used 60 shipping containers, 12 meters long, 6 meters wide and 2.7 meters high each, to build walls at three locations. Using cranes, police built a two-story, 5.2-meter-high wall by welding the containers together. This blocked roads leading to the Blue House, the U.S. Embassy compound and the central government complex.

“Barricades created with riot police buses had their limits, so we rented old containers,” said Lee Gil-beom, head of the public security bureau at the National Police Agency. Demonstrators have destroyed 47 riot buses so far during the street rallies."

Clearly the protests are about a lot more than beef. Supposedly poisonous US beef has just been the springboard to attack the Lee administration. There is a lot of dissatisfaction that he is, in fact, Bush's lapdog. But the protestors do seem confused fundamentally about how democracy works. Many of the signs and the interviewed protestors I have heard say that President Lee is acting like a dictator because he has policies they don't like. While it may be true that Lee fasttracked the US beef deal in a politically unwise way, but the fact that he was elected in a pro-American, conservative, and free trade basis should not be lost on people. He was elected, by the biggest margins ever in a Korean presidential election, which means he does get to be president for awhile. Even if people don't like him. Just look at the US--we let guys who didn't even win elections be president. (That has worked out really well...).

One thing I have found interesting is the idea that US beef is some evil thing. My students asked me, in semi-hushed tones, what is it like? It is clear they believe that US beef is somehow different that Korean beef in look, texture, taste, or whatever. It glows, perhaps? How disappointed they will be when they see that meat is just meat.

Korean restaurants around are advertising that they only serve Korean source food, such as this sign:

South Korean Protests over U.S. Beef - The Big Picture - Boston.com

A reader suggested these pictures of the anti-beef protests, and they are good ones worth checking out:

South Korean Protests over U.S. Beef - The Big Picture - Boston.com

We have been meaning to eat at this grilled eel (kwang oh) restaurant not far from out house for awhile now and finally got around to it. I wish we had discovered it earlier, it is yet another great restaurant that I would happily eat at every night for the rest of my life.

There are a lot of those restaurants here...

This is different than Japanese style unagi as the sauce is red pepper based rather than bar-b-que, and it is a different style grilled eel than we have had here. At this place the eel is killed fresh and served cooked, and rather than have it grilled over charcoal as we have had here usually, it is served cooked and you keep it on a grill to crispen. Perfect. We had this style eel in Busan a few months ago but this restaurant hopped it up a level.

Lark was sitting at the table with us and enjoying herself (note the hair), though no eel just yet for her.


One of the great things about this restaurant is that is inexpensive and has big "potations".



But the greatest thing has to be the frequent eel eating card, which gives you a free eel after only 20 eels eaten. With two weeks left, we can do this thing if we are focused.

One of my students mentioned today that she attended the anti-U.S. beef rallies over the weekend and that they were a lot of fun. People chanted, sang songs, and generally she said it was more like a festival than a rally.

But she left before nighttime, when the violence started. She went home and watched it on the web. The major media is not showing it, but you can see live video on Korea sites like afreeca.com

lost in translation

A guy I know here teaching English had his students pick English names. The best names chosen were:

Clitty
Thank You
Al Pacino
Arnie
Noodle
Neon


Skye met a parent in the park who introduced her child by his Korean name, but then added: "His English name is Juan".

Is it inappropriate to wonder at burning yourself alive to protest the importation of beef which hasn't actually started yet?

And is the newspaper's use of "long simmering" here actually appropriate?

INSIDE JoongAng Daily: "Long-simmering tensions boiled over earlier yesterday when a 56-year-old former worker on a cattle farm set himself ablaze in an apparent suicide attempt after attending a protest.

The man, identified only as Kim, drenched himself with gasoline and set himself on fire with a lighter. The 2:35 a.m. incident was near Seoul City Hall, witnesses and the police said. Jo Yong-seok, a doctor who treated the man at Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital, said Kim is in critical condition.

“My husband has attended candlelight vigils for the past two weeks,” Kim’s wife said, adding that he lost his job at a cattle farm in Gyeonggi about a month ago when the farm shut down.

The police said Kim telephoned Namdaemun Police Precinct around 2:18 a.m. warning of his suicide attempt. In a daily press briefing, a rally organizer blamed the Lee Myung-bak administration for the incident.

“This is the second unfortunate incident following that of Lee Byeong-ryeol,” the organizer said. “The government, which defrauds the people and crushes voices with combat boots, is entirely to blame for this.”

Lee, 42, set himself on fire during a protest in Jeonju on May 25. He remains in critical condition."