중앙데일리

Beware the 'Super Individual'

On November 4, 1979, a gang of militant Islamic students loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini stormed the American embassy in Teheran, Iran's capital. They seized 66 Americans and held them hostage. The Ayatollah then took over the hostage situation. President Jimmy Carter noted in his diary two days later that what his nation was dealing with were impossible lunatics, but lunatics with religious faith. One of the lunatic referred to by Presid…

Sept 17,2001
Mad Cows and Bad Messages

Typhoon Danas hit Tokyo hard on Tuesday. However, Japan's biggest news that day did not concern the storm, but rather, mad cow disease. When mad cow disease spread across Europe last year, the Japanese government proudly announced that Japan was a "safety zone," free from the scourge of the brain-wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Since the Japanese people had believed the government announcement, they were sh…

Sept 15,2001
Terror: Medieval Times to Today

The word "terror" originated from a Latin word, meaning great fear. But today the word terror normally means the illegal use of violence on people and property to threaten governments and citizens over political and social goals. This is how the word is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The word terrorism was coined during the political oppression of the French Revolution, called "La Terreur." Terrorism by pro-revolutionists was …

Sept 14,2001
Scholarship and the Blue House

The Center for Korean Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, organized a conference, "The Future of Korean Studies in the United States," last spring. Lee Sang-joo, then the president of the Academy of Korean Studies, attended the conference and played a leading role, in part due to his outgoing personality. Scholars who attended the conference and a party afterward were impressed at his ability to induce a good atmosphere. Many K…

Sept 13,2001
Art, Icons and Racism

An old painting is as good as a valuable history book. I am reminded of a wall painting of a horse-rider found in the Ssangyeong tomb in South Pyongan province in North Korea, which depicts the vigor of a young man. It is typical art of Koguryo, an ancient Korean kingdom located in the north of the Korean Peninsula and parts of what is now China. I might also recall many of the self-portraits by Rembrandt, a Dutch painter of the 17th cent…

Sept 12,2001
Reducing the Workload

Otto von Bismarck, once called the "blood and iron" Chancellor of Germany, left three bits of advice to young people. The first was "work," the second, "work more" and the third, "work until the end of the task." If Bismarck were alive, he would have picked Korea as the world's most promising country. It has been proven that Koreans work harder than anybody. The U.S.-based market research firm, Roper Starch Worldwide, surveyed 32 countries an…

Sept 11,2001
A New Plague in Our Midst

Edward Jenner was an English doctor whose experiment 200 years ago with the cowpox virus led to the discovery of vaccination against smallpox. He got the idea, records say, when he realized that milkmaids were nearly immune from the disease. Another famous story, although not true, says he began his clinical trial by inoculating his own son. The first person Jenner inoculated, on May 1, 1796, was an 8-year old boy named James Philipps. No deta…

Sept 10,2001
Refugees and Emigrants

The word "refugee" means a person who leaves his home and country because of war, political, religious or racial oppression. Since human history is filled with conflicts and struggles, refugees have existed since ancient times. The people who have had the longest history as refugees are the Jews. The Jewish history of living as refugees extends to the time when the Jews escaped ancient Egypt, led by Moses, and lasted another 2,000 years after…

Sept 08,2001
Cloaks and Daggers

Spying was once referred as the second oldest profession. This is not a joke. Take a look at Chapter 13 of the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them." The statement more or less makes Moses the first spy. From this we can confirm …

Sept 07,2001
A Mirror Breaks, a Child Suffers

When a married couple is parted by divorce, it is said idiomatically in Northeast Asia that they broke a mirror. The expression originated from a tragic Chi-nese legend. When a huge army of the newly emerging Sui dynasty invaded Chen, a land to the south, a high-ranking official of Chen had to flee the country, leaving his wife behind. He broke a mirror into two pieces and gave one piece to his wife, as a token of his promise to meet again and pu…

Sept 06,2001

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