Celebrating Imperfection

So I finally caught up with the rest of the world by upgrading my tv to a flat panel recently. And with it, I started watching HD channels. As my friends awed and oohed at the clarity that is mesmerizing, we noticed that actors, news anchors, and everyone are not perfect. HD provides such clearness that you can see every, tiny wrinkles and flaws. I can see how actors and news anchors would not like HD.

But after a while of pointing out all the flaws, I actually like realizing that actors are imperfect. How comforting to know that actors are also human, with flaws! So, here's to celebrating imperfections and flaws.

Thanksgiving, Korean Style

Thanksgiving dinner in our family is slightly different... because we add Korean style to our dinner. What does that mean? Well, we have slightly different utensils -- chopsticks. And we add other food... like rice, boochim, etc. ;) Here's a picture of our Thanksgiving dinner. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Right to Free Speech

What does right to free speech mean? There has been quite a bit of reaction over NPR's firing of Juan Williams. NPR has been criticized by left and right for firing Mr. Williams based on his comment. The outrage is probably based on our notion that one should be free to express one's opinion -- you know, free speech?

Except that right to free speech does not guarantee your job -- employer can fire you for any reason, including saying anything it does not like. Remember the phrase, "dooced"? For blogging your work and being fired when your employer finds out about it? (By the way, this is the woman and her blog that started the phrase.) It happens ALL the time, not just to journalists. Technically, NPR had the right to terminate Mr. Williams.

It's an odd thing to remember but basically, right to free speech means that the government cannot throw you into jail for saying something. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your paycheck. But is it truly free speech if you can lose your livelihood? Losing your paycheck is a significant threat to stifling what you might want to say, isn't it? So maybe it's not unlimited right to free speech... just a qualified right to free speech.

The Cost of Moral Choice

Craigslist, a popular website for finding just about anything, has taken off adult services link and replaced with the word "censored."  Many state attorney generals wrote to Craigslist to take down the service because it allowed prostitution and sex trade.  According to this article,  Craigslist had initially pointed out that it vetted all adult services ads and that the ads were no worse than other ads at other site.    

It's disheartening to realize that in this modern age, slavery and forced sex labor is still an on-going problem.  See this National Geographic article (full article only in print) and website of U.S. Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking.  Whether or not Craigslist's "adult services" section had been used by those engaged in forced sex services may be debated, but at least taking down the section ensures that Craigslist "adult services" site is definitely not used.  Craigslist is losing some money by not having the site up (at least in the U.S.) but moral choice is not always about the money.  And hopefully, state attorney generals and other organizations can convince that this should be permanent.

Democracy at Work with 2 Senators

So apparently, if you want to pass a bill quickly, you just need 98 less Senators. On Thursday, two Senators flew back to pass a $600 million border-security bill, according to this WSJ article. It is amusing to hear that law can be passed quickly (record 31 minutes). But the article raises some questions. What is the point of electing those who are supposed to represent people if they don't actually participate in the voting process (albeit, the article does point out it had been passed previously)? Is this really "democracy"?

And these days, we have cell phones and internet; is it really necessary for Senators to fly back to be physically present to vote? Why could they not vote over the internet or phone?

So many questions, and probably no answers.

Life Without Facebook

So I signed up for a Facebook account because so many people asked me to be on it. And I even had a post here about how I refuse to be on Facebook. After being on it, I decided I should have stuck with my original instinct and deactivated my account. And now that I don't have an account with Facebook, has my life changed a whole lot?

Actually, it has in a way. Before, people bugged me to get an account and asked me what was wrong with me for not being on Facebook. After I announced my decision to pull out of Facebook, asked everyone to contact me if they want to keep in touch with me outside of Facebook and didn't have my contact info (which generated all of 2 inquiries out of whatever number of "friends" I was connected with), and then went off-line after multiple warnings.... the big difference is that no one is bugging me if I saw some picture that was posted on Facebook, if I saw the status of someone, and if I am on Facebook period. For some reason, the fact that I tried and decided to delete, caused people to leave me alone about not being on Facebook. Maybe people felt that it was the cool thing to do with all the privacy issues Facebook was having. Who knows? But unlike before when people thought I was just wrong not to be on Facebook, now they all seem to respect my decision.

I kinda like it. =) And I love the fact that I don't have to answer to whether I saw some random picture on the Facebook or not.

Coddling Our Future?

I've been tad busy in the past month or so with personal issues and work load. Combining the two, basically, I effectively abandoned by blog for a while.

Anyway, I read this article from New York Times which made me laugh and then indignant. Basically, according to this article, because law students are having a hard time finding a job, law schools decided to pad everyone's grades. And just like that, everyone's grades are higher.

What disservice to students who worked hard and earned their grades! Comments to the article is pretty long. It's a quite a drastic measure from educational institutions. I guess I think that they should teach our future lawyers (and hopefully future leaders) to find their strength to fight through obstacles that life throws at them instead of coddling them. Hardship is life, and life isn't always rosy. Those who can get through the tough times will appreciate their job more and learn a little something called resilience. If law schools wanted to take a philosophical stance against grading, then they should (1) not have a curve and/or (2) get rid of all types of grades (pass/no pass, a-f scale, number scale, etc.). Otherwise, inflating grades just sends a message to the law students that they are entitled to something they have not earned. And coddling our future lawyers and leaders in a way that may harm them in the long run.

Plea to Silicon Valley and Tech World -- Think SMALL!

Do you remember the days when you thought who needs 1 GB of space? That seemed way too much space. Except now that everything is faster, all the software is taking up more space. I have a plea to the tech world -- could you PLEASE make programs smaller?? It's ridiculous that I'm getting messages to delete programs because 130 GB of space is not big enough. If we are getting so great at conserving energy, I say please conserve bandwidth/hard drive space/memory. , I'm tired of looking for ways to delete programs, files, defragment, etc. to make room for bigger and bigger files. (Incidentally, Microsoft and Adobe are the worst offenders, at least in my laptop space).

And if we are moving into "cloud" computing (e.g. zoho.com) to make room in local space, I have another plea to make. People don't necessarily want their files stored in 3rd party servers -- please have an option for people to use softwares in the "cloud" but keep files in their own computers. No offense, but I have no faith that any other company or person will be vigilant about keeping my tax files, social security number, and any other documents with sensitive information completely safe. At least if the files are sitting in my laptop, I have only myself to blame (maybe).

The chance of anyone remotely connected to making any of this happen reading this blog post is probably small to nil. But I feel much better having vented out into the cyberspace the frustration of upgrading hard drive or laptop to make way for bigger programs.

Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park

So I took a short break and went to Palm Springs with my sister. Actually, it was to cash in on my one free night stay at a hotel (which I won on some random raffle) and free dinner to go with it. Because we don't really play golf, we decided to go check out the Joshua Tree National Park. I was surprised at how big the park was -- 2 hours to drive straight across from North to South! And I was also pleasantly surprised at how majestic desert vegetation can be. Here are some pictures.

Forest of Joshua Trees. I had seen random Joshua Trees by the freeway but they looked quite beautiful in a field full of them.


A close up of one against rock formations.


Although it was very windy, Joshua Trees did not sway with the wind. The bark of a Joshua Tree was rather interesting.

A different angle of Joshua Trees.

Cactus flower!


This is from the highest point at the park. What you see there, it's San Andreas fault line! Pretty interesting to see one of the biggest earthquake fault line in California.


Self explanatory.

Me in the middle of Cholla Cactus Garden.


Cholla Cactus Garden, in all its glory.


Another angle of cacti... bottom up!

Flower of cholla cactus.

Cholla cactus against the sun.
Other wild flowers with cholla cactus.

Not sure what this is called but looked quite dramatic.

Tale of Two Elections

So apparently, Mattel held an election to allow whoever voted to decide Barbie's next career choice -- anchorwoman, computer engineer, architect, environmentalist or surgeon. As WSJ tells it, girls voted in large part for anchorwoman. Women in science heard of the election, though, and got busy; they told their associations, organizations, friends, and anyone in the science field to vote for computer engineer. As the viral messages got through, female geeks and nerds turned the tide around. Based on the votes, Barbie is getting her "geek" on coming this fall and computer engineer Barbie is coming this fall (Mattel is also manufacturing anchorwoman Barbie). It's a true testament to what power of democracy and voting (and some geek power) can do.

In a more serious context though, power of voting works if everyone has equal access. Right now, a landmark election is being held in Sudan. It's a landmark election because it's the country's first multiparty election in 20 years, as the NY Times notes. But not everyone had access to vote because the polling stations were not open. See this BBC News site with comments from folks. And shouldn't there be real choices, as in more than 1 choice? Opposition leaders of the parties not in power have dropped out of the race. The only choice left on the ballot appears to be the incumbent president of Sudan, who is currently charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity. What do you do when there are no other choices? Some of the discouraged folks apparently did not and does not intend to vote. But that would mean that those who voted, and voted for the incumbent president, would be the only ones to have their voices heard. When there is no real choice, then maybe it should be like the multiple choice questions we used to take in high school ... you know, where the last choice is "none of the above." And choose that (or indicate that on the ballot) instead of choosing anyone on the ballot. What a powerful message that would send if people who believed the election is rigged, with no real choice, voted with a message that they choose to vote none of the above candidate. That would be an interesting election result indeed if majority indicated, by participating in election, that they choose not to elect any of the folks running.

Unfortunately and obviously, the reality is much different. And it may very well be likely, as it seems to happen in other countries, that there may not be a fair result because of lack of access to vote and lack of real choice. And that would discourage those not believing in the process to not vote at all. But by all means, I hope those people would then still make their voices heard -- by indicating "none of the above."

Car Analogy

Do you like elephants? I think they are pretty cool animals. And apparently their uniqueness isn't about having a long trunk. It's that they move like 4X4... you know like a car. As in a four-wheel drive. Each elephant limb moves independently according to this article. I guess we just can't help ourselves analogizing to what's familiar to us... cars!

My Wish List

Because I know all of 2 people read my blog (but I do thank you all for reading my drivel every so often ;), I'm going to bore you with my wish list. I heard once if you write everything down that you wish would come true, it will (not sure that it has to be a public proclamation but I don't think with the number of people that read my blog, this is really all that public). So here they are, in no particular order and in no relation to reality.

1) Perfect vision. I want to wake up and see the whole world without putting on glasses or contact lens, without burning parts of my eyes off.
2) Wireless, duplex printing, color, all-in-one printer, that is really small.
3) To be a great professor.
4) A flat screen TV, that does not eat up my bill.
5) An electronic reader that I can fold up and open up to 2 or more pages at one time.
6) A library full of books.
7) Time to sleep well.
8) Sleep continuously for 8 hours every day.
9) Time to read all the books I want to read.
10) Play tennis well enough to beat Roger Federer and Serena Williams on the same day.
11) Hit the high F and be able to sing Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's Magic Flute.
12) Fly -- with just my arms.
13) To be a fabulous dancer at all kinds of dance -- Salsa, Argentinian Tango, Hip-Hop, Ballroom.
14) To have pain-free back.
15) Fall in love with Mr. Right, who also happens to fall in love with me.
16) Become a mother.
17) Chop vegetables really fast.
18) Run like the wind and like it.
19) Become a judge.
20) Be the first trillionaire.
21) Become a rock star.
22) Become an opera star.
23) Paint one original painting that will be hung in all museums.
24) See the whole world.
25) Fly out to the outer space.
26) Visit Pluto and establish it as a planet.
27) Never have my name mis-pronounced.
28) Be fluent in 10 different languages.
29) To be able to do a handstand.
30) Know every piece of music and be able to name it within 3 seconds of listening.
31) To learn the language of Native American and preserve for posterity.
32) Find all my past friends I lost touch with and see what they have been up to (including John Kim!)
33) Become a fly on the wall to see what the world was like 100 years ago.
34) Become a fly on the wall to see what the world will be like 100 years from now.
35) Climb the tallest building. With bare hands.
36) Write the next great American novel.
37) Become an immortal poet.
38) To not be "medically starving"
39) Perfect memory.
40) Perfect pitch.
41) Find my secret admirer.
42) Organized files at home.
43) Personal assistant that can clean, laundry, file stuff away, grocery shop, and call cable/phone/utilities so I can call my friends.
44) To see how mom and dad met... and fell in love.
45) To kiss a Hollywood movie star.
46) To have a Hollywood movie star want to kiss ME.
47) To leave an indelible print of myself in history.
48) To find clothes in my size for any type of clothes whenever I shop... instead of buying clothes that are small enough to fit me.
49) Make snow angels.
50) To have green thumb.

Education as Priority

So today, students finally rose up and said enough was enough. Students across California staged a strike to protest fee hikes in defense of public education. It's a shame that our society's priority on education has fallen to the point where students have to protest to spotlight this issue.

Although normally I don't like to read non-fiction, I am trying to actually follow through with the new year resolution to read all my books that I have (either bought or given as gifts). One of them is "John Adams." And as one of our founding fathers, what were his thoughts on education?

"Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant." (emphasis added)(page 103 of John Adams by David McCullough).

Maybe it's time our government and politicians sat down and thought about our priorities. And I tend to think President Adams was right... education is important enough that no amount of dollars should be cut from it. Make it a priority! Our society's future depends on educating all of our young minds.

Toyota Fiasco -- Remind You of Ford Pinto Memo?

Maybe people don't learn from history ... or maybe all corporation (because of its structure) inevitably ends up this way.

Currently, Toyota is getting pretty beat up -- what with recalls, inability to explain what is really wrong with the cars, etc. This week in particular, news swirled around how outrageous it is that Toyota's internal memo discussed how it saved $100 million by floormat recall. People are questioning whether Toyota really cares about safety.

But current event reminded me of another part of auto history... that people seem to have forgotten. Do you remember the infamous Ford Pinto Memo? Basically, Ford knew that Pinto had a defect. However, after calculating what Ford would pay for accidents caused by the defect, Ford concluded it was mathematically better to leave the problem as is because it would save $70 million. That is after mathematically calculating for payments for accidents, burned victims, settlements, etc. In essence, human lives -- that we would like to think cannot be reduced to dollars -- were reduced to dollars and were concluded to be worth less than $11 fix on the defective part.

So Toyota appears to have taken similar route of calculating cost v. benefit for the company. To lay people, it's appalling. Yet, I have to wonder, since this appears to be history repeating itself, maybe it's just inevitable that corporate structure leads to such result. At some point, the drive for profit (bottom line) at all cost drives out any other factors such as safety and value of human lives is more than dollar figures... So what's our lesson? Will beating up Toyota mean this won't happen again? I have to wonder...

Firing Entire School System

So you may have heard, but the school board in Central Falls, Rhode Island decided fire all of the teachers and administrators after years of poor performance. If you haven't heard yet, you can read this NY Times article. Changing status quo sounds like the right thing to do... and apparently the politicians support the move. Yet, strangely, some students appear to oppose it because they believe their teachers were doing a good job. I hope the news media follows-up with what happens after the district hires a whole set of new teachers. Too often, there is a flash of headline and no follow-up on what happened afterwards. After all, in this economy, it's an incredibly drastic move to fire an entire school system.

Dear "Just Another Admirer"

Dear "Just Another Admirer,"
Thank you for the beautiful tulips. They made my day, especially because I expected another Valentine's Day to pass by me... without much celebration.

When I listened to my voicemail today from my apartment's office telling me I need to pick up flowers, I was frankly quite shocked. As I was walking down that long windy hallway to the office, I thought maybe they got the wrong person. Who could have possibly sent me flowers? Maybe it's a single token flower from some non-profit organization I donated.

When I got to the office, I waited another eternally long 15 minutes while the person who was being helped was finally off on her way. Then the manager went back and lo and behold, she brought back a box of flowers from Pro Flowers shipped overnight by UPS. The huge box was most certainly addressed to me, and it was not a token flower from a non-profit organization.

I hurried back to my apartment to rip open the box. In the box lay a bouquet of tulips... with a card wishing me a "Happy Valentine's Day" signed by "Just Another Admirer."

I was stunned. And then I was wearing the biggest smile. After that, my mind began to race. Who is this??? I began to think of ways to figure out who you are. How could I not? My curiosity remains high. And I hope some day you will reveal yourself to me before my curiosity kills me. But for now, I would like to thank you (and hope that you are reading this) for the lovely flowers. They brightened my day. And YOU brought cheer and hope that the dream of love will not die.

These are the flowers you sent me (although I'm sure you already know).


Whoever you are, Happy Valentine's Day!
And someday, I hope I find out who you are.

Working on Non-Work

I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to have a perpetual list of things I want to get accomplished that is not work (as in what pays my bills) but not what you would consider entertainment. Basically, they are non-work work.

I made a list to get through this weekend because I got sick of feeling like I had all these loose ends. My list ended up with 16 to-do's. I ended up with 5 that I haven't crossed off. Unfortunately, 4 of 5 are things that I would enjoy doing in my free time -- singing (practicing for my upcoming concert), reading my book/magazines, etc. What got crossed off? Calling my cell phone company (who told me they can't fix text message time stamp because it's Microsoft's fault), getting financial/computer softwares, updating my 2009 finances in anticipation of doing my taxes, etc. Such is our modern life. It's a bit ironic that our technology keeps us just as busy (half of what I crossed off involved using computer, cell phone, etc.). I love technology but apparently maintaining technology in our lives takes up quite a bit of free time.

Although I'm feeling pretty accomplished every time I crossed off something from the list, I think I have to prioritize my list so that next weekend, I cross off things I enjoy first!

Free Market v. the Government?

Every once in a while, I am rather bemused by seeming contradictions. It was not so long ago that the entire financial system in the U.S. (and the world, for that matter) came to a halt because liquidity in the market dried up. Do you remember all the sound-bite in the news explaining to the mainstream what that means? Everyone was trying to explain why it was such a crisis and how we could enter into another Depression. The government took unprecedented steps by pouring money into the system, watching what letting Lehman Brothers fail do to the financial system, "bailing" banks out, and today, we hardly remember the panic that we felt.

So now that the crisis passed, banks don't want the government to regulate them. What's ironic is that when the banks were in trouble, they wanted the government to step in and pump the "financial system" back up. I attended a telephonic continuing legal education during that time, and the speaker was a financial consultant (don't ask how that constitutes continuing legal education). The presenter was absolutely adamant that the government had to step in because the market was in such systemic failure, that there was no way market could have corrected itself to get out of the crisis.

It turns out, that the free market may not be perfect in practice. Adam Smith's invisible hand may not guide the system away from major pitfalls.

So what would be wrong with allowing government regulation so that we can avoid such catastrophic financial crisis? There's the bureaucracy argument. And then there's the whole shouldn't capitalism mean free from the government intervention argument.

At the end of the day though, maybe it's not about having more or less regulation. Maybe it's about societal values and attitude. During the same time period when American financial institutions were getting inventive in creating "derivatives," "credit swaps," and a whole bunch of mechanisms to be called "securities" to work in a way that basically would allow no one to have incentive to take responsibilities, Canadian banks did not march down the same path. In case you forgot, while the rest of the world, modeled after American financial system, fell into the same crisis because of such exotic financial instruments, Canadian banks were the ONLY banks that did not need to be bailed out by its government. Why? Is it stricter regulation? Maybe it's the people that run those institutions and their attitude of taking the "conservative" approach of not investing in exotic instruments that didn't smell right. And maybe they decided that securities should be understandable and transparent... and those responsible for paying or investing, should remain responsible.

But that's just my guess (and guessing from what Canadian bankers said in the news around that time, that their culture is different). If people want to find loopholes, it does not matter how much laws or regulations are in place... loopholes will be exploited. If people want to play it straight, then it doesn't matter that there aren't additional regulations.

So at the end of the day, maybe the question isn't should the government regulate the financial institutions more. Maybe the question is how do we change the attitude and value of people running the system. And that may be a harder question to answer than imposing regulations...

Small v. Big Government

My friend and I got to talking about whether it's better to have bigger government involvement or less. It came up because my friend pointed out that more people are somehow connected to government involvement -- direct employment, indirect employment (contractor), beneficiary of some program, etc. -- these days than now.

After our discussion, I started thinking. What's the point of having a government, if it wasn't involved in our lives? The basic notion of having a government is that it was formed to do things for the people that we could not do individually. So government makes rules, protect the people, and enforce the rules. Since we all pay to the government, then don't we want government involved?

The alternative would be to live in a society with no government. Then, of course, there is no society. Every person for him or herself. Philosophers tell us that we would not want to live in such a place. I have no idea whether we would or not. However, in a place with no government, I wonder if people would naturally start coming together, start establishing some sort of rule (don't kill me I won't kill you, this plot of land is mine and all that grows on it is mine alone, etc.), and eventually government would spring up.

Just a random thought on how people actually would like it if there was no government...

Pants on the Ground

Ok. I had to treat myself while working after hours on bankrupty stuff. So I ended up watching American Idol, Season 9. You have to watch this YouTube video of this 62 year old man singing his original song, "pants on the ground." It made me laugh... along with all the judges. And Simon may be right.. it will probably be a hit!

Holiday Season

Although the moon was not actually blue, I celebrated the end of 2009 and coming of 2010 by getting a peak at the blue moon. Although a bit hectic, I did manage to have a get together with my friends for a little holiday gathering before the end of 2009. And this morning, I was in the mood to put on a han bok (traditional Korean clothing) to celebrate the New Year's Day with my family. And of course, we ate dduk gook (traditional Korean soup). Below are some pictures. I am off to celebrate the new year with some sun and relaxation in Maui... and maybe I might even get to see some turtles and whales!

Happy 2010!


Making merry wee into the night with friends.



The only time we get to sing Christmas songs are during the holidays. So, at my insistence, we sang some carols.


Another shot of the holiday gathering.


My sister doesn't like to be in photos (although I did manage to get one with her). My parents and me on 1/1/2010.

My parents celebrating the New Years Day.


And finally my mom and me. Han bok is pretty uncomfortable ... so as soon as the pictures were taken, I promptly changed. ;)