중앙데일리

[EDITORIALS]Press Policies Under Global Scrutiny

Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), an international press freedom watchdog group based in Paris, sent a letter Tuesday to Culture and Tourism Minister Kim Han-gill, protesting the South Korean government's media tax probe. In the letter, the group warned, "Such a tax probe could represent a real threat to the pluralism of information on the eve of the presidential election slated next year." It went on to condemn "all pressure…

Apr 11,2001
[TODAY]Realistic Expectations On Textbooks

In Korea's eyes, Japan has two contradictory faces. Last week, Newsweek Korea published a cover story on a Korea envy syndrome spreading in Japanese society. Let's look at excerpts from its April 11 issue. "Nothing in Suguru Okuhara's life prepared him to like Korea. His grandfather called Koreans racist names and sang song with lyrics like 'Koreans sound like pigs.' After a family holiday to Korea, however, Okuhara designed a Web site dedicat…

Apr 11,2001
[NOTEBOOK]Government Must Learn to Cut Losses

There is a man who loses significant sums of money unusually frequently when he is gambling. He doesn't know when to stop and raises the stakes even when he has a bad hand. This short-sighted, desperate attempt to recover his losses in a short time is the main factor contributing to his defeat. This phenomenon, whereby people or organizations continue to invest resources in failing courses of action, is called an escalation of commitment…

Apr 11,2001
[FOUNTAIN] When in the Wrong, Say Sorry

The Japanese word, owabi, is usually employed to express a feeling somewhere between regret and a full apology. On Oct. 8, 1998, Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi adopted the Japan-Republic of Korea Joint Declaration of a New Japan-ROK Partnership Toward the 21st Century. In this joint declaration, Mr. Obuchi regarded "in a spirit of humility the historical fact that Japan, during a certain peri…

Apr 11,2001
[EDITORIALS]Future Leaders Must Be Trained

Concerns have been raised inside and outside academia over the easy College Scholastic Ability Test for several years. Those concerns have been proven to be right. A Seoul National University mathematics test given to 1,444 freshmen in the engineering and natural science departments was failed by 111 students, or 7.7 percent. Their scores of less than 30 percent mean that they cannot take math courses without remedial coursework. It is kno…

Apr 11,2001
[EDITORIALS]How to Protest Japanese Textbooks

The government has suddenly changed its course and is taking a hard-line stance on the distortions in Japanese history textbooks. As a diplomatic gesture, it recalled its top envoy in Tokyo, and it censured Japan before an international audience at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. A textbook contingency group made up of working-level officials was launched. The government's shift toward a hard-line opposition is understandable and…

Apr 11,2001
[EDITORIALS]Shame on the Fair Trade Commission

The actions of the Fair Trade Commission grow more incomprehensible. As if pressing ahead with newspaper regulations despite opposition from all walks of life were not enough, it has now done something beyond common sense. The FTC denied entry to a journalist who covers the commission. From Saturday to Monday, some FTC bureaus and divisions, including the investigation bureau chief's office, had the sign "Donga Ilbo Reporter Banned From Entry"…

Apr 11,2001
[VIEWPOINT]Need to Develop a Culture of Criticism

Each time I grade student papers, I recall a teacher from the days of my studies in the United States. Before pointing out defects, the professor always found something to praise first. I am still trying to use him as my role model. When I was invited to seminars as a novice academic, I believed the proper role of a discussant was to give biting criticism and to ask prickly questions. I tried to make my criticisms more acrid when a person shar…

Apr 11,2001
[MINORITY VOICE]The Internet Should Not Be Condemned

The Internet may have triggered an information revolution, but alarms are ringing about its effect on Korean teenagers. According to one statistic, 80 percent of managers of obscene Internet sites are teenagers. An Internet site run by a boy, 15, provides recipes for bombs, teenage girls are meeting older men in online chat rooms, forming "sugar daddy" relationships, teenagers have committed suicide after going to how-to Internet sites and…

Apr 11,2001
[FOUNTAIN] The Changing Culture of Drinking

Li Po, the master Chinese poet and one of the most famous imbibers in Chinese history, often celebrated the joy of drinking in his poetry. In one of his poems, he sang that flowers bloom while people exchange wineglasses. Flowers bloom everywhere in spring, and we can be all drunk only with the fact that spring has come. Spring induces people to forget what we gain and lose in this secular world. The bright spring has finally come in Seoul,…

Apr 11,2001

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