중앙데일리

O tempes! O mores!

The Korean word for “metamorphosis” also has the meaning of “abnormality” or “perversion.” A tadpole hatches from an egg and undergoes a transformation into a frog. Butterflies, flies and mosquitoes are insects that transform during the course of life. Human beings do not. The parts of human beings grow with age, and no arms or legs start growing out of one’s side some time into life. But people here call those with different sexual tende…

Apr 08,2003
Criticism and the press

“I once saw Kim Yoon-sik, a literary critic, borrowing a couple of books from another critic, Paik Chull. Years went by, and I had a chance to read the history of literature compiled by Mr. Kim a few years later. He ruthlessly attacked Mr. Paik’s analyses in his books; it was a ‘constructive deconstruction’ and a march toward enlightenment. I once saw Kim Hyun praise a critique by Lee O-young and then soon attack it mercilessly. Disputes over…

Apr 06,2003
Misaligned planets

Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus. That was the phrase of the day around the world, provided not long ago by Robert Kagan, a well-known conservative columnist from the United States. Local journalists didn’t miss the chance to quote the phrase in their articles. The phrase suggests that the United States and Europe have irreconcilable differences in points of views on the war in Iraq. However, those who are fluent in Englis…

Apr 04,2003
The virus battleground

Louis Pasteur proved with experiments that human life is affected by microscopic organisms in the air. With S-shaped flasks, Mr. Pasteur made an important discovery. He put broth into several flasks, boiled the liquid and cooled the flasks. He learned that no matter how long the flasks sat still the liquid inside did not become contaminated. No microorganism was found in the flasks because the bent neck of the flasks stopped the microorganis…

Apr 04,2003
Same decision 40 years later

Period of engagement: eight years and eight months. Number of troops dispatched: 312,000. Enemy soldiers felled: 41,000. Our troops killed: 4,900. Number of missions fought: 577,400. That is the record of Korea’s participation in the Vietnam War, which started in July 1964 with the dispatch of liaison officers followed by four dispatches of combat troops. The campaign was unprecedented in Korea’s participation in combat overseas. K…

Apr 02,2003
Another war, more dissent

In the U.S. war against Iraq, the United States is facing the greatest anti-war sentiment in its history since the nightmarish days of Vietnam. And one of the core strategists for this war is Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. secretary of defense who was a White House official in the Nixon administration during the Vietnam War. At that time, an incident now largely known as the Pentagon Papers broke out, which dealt a critical blow to the morality…

Apr 02,2003
The natural life

A reader in Daegu sent me a long message after reading my book. He maintained that wild plants are not wild plants if they are transplanted in a garden. Wild plants, as their name implies, are genuine only when they are in nature, he said. He thanked me for rehabilitating or popularizing wild plants, but worried that a boom in wild plants might cause trouble for them. Another reader, after reading the part that I wrote about the effects of…

Mar 31,2003
Battles then, battles now

Baghdad, a name that originally meant “land inherited by God,” was once a quiet village located near the west side of the Tigris River. In A.D. 762, during the Abbasid Dynasty, the second caliph, or emperor, Abu Jafar Al-Mansur, chose the village as the capital city, and a new era began. Baghdad flourished as the cultural center of Islam while other European cities were still in the Dark Ages. But the 37th caliph, Mustasim, who reigned …

Mar 30,2003
The art of war

The history of mankind is often called the history of war. The time lines of Korean history and world history are mostly marked with wars. It is hard to deny that scientific technology and civilization developed by going through wars. And yet, no war was ever good. Commoners have to endure their leaders’ stupidity. The Iraq war is no exception. Innocent civilians are dying in a war they never wanted. To watch the 24-hour live broadcast …

Mar 28,2003
Whirlybirds

Leonardo da Vinci’s conception of the helicopter, or what was then just an aerial screw, appeared about 1490. A scientist, artist and inventor, da Vinci conceived that a flying machine, although it remained untested in his time, could be propelled in the air if a screw-like device were rotating swiftly. The man who looked at the sketch of da Vinci’s aerial screw and put the concept into practical reality was the Russian aviation pioneer I…

Mar 27,2003

1 ... 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 ... 1098