In winter, I'm a Buddhist,
And in summer, I'm a nudist.
- Joe Gould
"My Religion"
In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.
- Oscar Wilde, aware in 1889 that popular conceptions about the country and its people are mostly fiction.
Not even 10% of what Japanese people are thinking is communicated overseas.
- Watanabe Tsuneo of CSIS
All foreign correspondents, whenever they desert statistics for judgments of opinion...become models of self-deception. They may call themselves, with proper gravity, ‘reporters’. But...they are nothing but quack psychiatrists who do not even know that this is the field they practise.
- Alistair Cooke
Where all news comes at second-hand, where all the testimony is uncertain, men cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions. The environment in which they act is not the realities themselves, but the pseudo-environment of reports, rumors, and guesses.
- Walter Lippmann
We want...a revolution - a turning of the wheel, so that the state becomes once again the servant of the people, and not the other way around. We are the progressives now, comrades, (and) you the reactionaries.
- Daniel Hannan
If the textbook says, "It is well known that...", you can be sure that is a very good place to begin a research inquiry.
- Isaiah Bowman, geographer and former president of Johns Hopkins University
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
- Cicero (55 BC)
We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. It is not we who silence the press. It is the press that silences us. It is not a case of the Commonwealth settling how much the editors shall say; it is a case of the editors settling how much the Commonwealth shall know. If we attack the press, we shall be rebelling, not repressing.
- G.K. Chesterton
You can see a lot by looking.
- Yogi Berra
All text copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 by William Sakovich
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Dokdo Golf | Japan Probe said
[…] amusing display of nationalism (via Ampontan): With nationalism at a fever pitch in the country, O2 Resort, a golf course in Taebaek, Gangwon, […]
Aceface said
At least they have a sense of irony.
Dokdo as the bunker….
EthnocentricDoggerel said
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSSEO18955020080731?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
how ya like them apples? 🙂
ampontan said
Sounds like the modern equivalent of buying Manhattan Island from the Indians for 20 dollars worth of trinkets.
EthnocentricDoggerel said
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/07/29/intelligent-commentary-on-dokdo/#more-7148
Just a contrarian argument for your reading pleasure… Any feedback? Preferrably something more substantive than the revisionist and smarmy flailing over supposed tropes of Korean philistinism/recklessness and Japanese gentility/emasculation that typifies this blog… Can you say “phallus envy?”
ampontan said
Congratulations! You’ve just earned a spot in the Hall of Fame at the top of the page. Take a quick tour to see for yourself.
I enjoy reading a bit of clever invective myself, but most people aren’t capable of it. Still, the incorrect use of six words in one sentence isn’t an easy feat, so your note is worthy of recognition for that alone. Sort of like running backwards for 50 yards into your own end zone.
But you have a way to go before reaching the heights of triple-threat Steve Schapiro. That requires being truly whacked out, truly inspired, and having a bit of intelligence.
Work on those last two and then get back to us, won’t you?
Get a Job, Son! said
Yes, nice post EthnocentricDoggerel.
Please read further into the Reuters reports onthe issue and you can see the following…
“We regret that this change in designation was perceived by South Koreans as some sort of change in our policy,” Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the White House National Security Council, told reporters.
…
After the United States was contacted by high-level South Korean government officials, Bush ordered U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to look into the matter, Wilder said.
“It was decided after that review that the change in designation was not warranted at this time, and so that database is now being restored to where it was prior to this change in designation,” he said.
In other words… before (lame duck) Pres. Bush visits S.Korea, Korean senior officials requested a reverse to quell any potential protests and unrest, lest the visit be more bad press for LMB.
It hardly ranks as a ringing endorsement for S.Korean territorial rights.
Get a Job, Son! said
above text taken from http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN3029250220080730
Topcat said
From the archives of Matt’s Occidentalism
http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=647
Get a Job, Son! said
Well… I hate to bring up this little debate again, but in a similar vein to S.Korean foreign affairs is this little news article…
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/08/136_28982.html
I wonder how S.Korea can worry about relations with other countries (Japan -Liancourt / USA -beef) when they cannot sort out smaller issues with the -brothers- to the north?
Bender said
Another row with China?
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/08/205_29027.html