Darwin Day and SermonAudio

The photo is from Washington university. Since the URL is on the photo, I hope I can use it.
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A commenter, for no good reason, suggested I visit SermonAudio (I discuss religion frequently, so there is good reason to mention such a site, but this was a post about sharing soup, not the body of Christ or Loaves and Fishes or the like). The link was broken but I looked around while I was there. I am uninterested in theological issues in general, but searched for evolution and found a few sermons on the subject.

EDIT: The link was probably fine. Comments cannot exceed a certain number of characters or they get cut off. I could probably read it from inside Blogger and I may do so. My commenter and I need to use 'tinyurl.com' to make the address fit on the blogger comment page.

February 12th is Darwin Day. Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln) were born one hundred and ninety-nine years ago.

I listened to one sermon and considered trying to tear it apart, as a good atheist should, but in honour of Darwin Day, let me instead go over the sermon and point out one particular group of errors in it: evolution is not purely atheistic.

I started listening, intending to hear the whole thing before commenting or the putting finger to keyboard but I felt I wouldn't be able to take another time through. I started writing quotes then started listing where the quotes were as I wrote them down. The first few quotes, then, have no time-stamp, but later ones do.

Dr. Griswold died in 1982 and I don't know when these recordings were made. I still find them relevant because the site felt they were relevant, posting them in 2004. The claims and points of the sermon are similar to those that could be found today. The final third is mostly about the evolutionistic worldview -which he thinks is the same as an atheistic worldview. As I am not defending atheism today, I left that part out.

Selected quotes from the sermon with my commentary in blue:

"Maybe the most subtle, and the dangerous satanic forces to undermine [Christianity] is evolution."

Without question as a believer, as a Christian, we accept what the bible says on the subject about creation.

[scientists] brag about their belief in evolution, not realizing that they are placing their faith in religious and philosophical principles and not in scientific fact.

They are opposed. You can not believe in both.

"The most logical and reasonable place to deal with an atheistic, evolutionary worldview is in the pulpit."

The evolutionary worldview is a non-theistic conception of reality.

Let's start here: evolutionary biologists reference God in their observations just as frequently as other scientists do (which is to say, not at all). I wanted to mention a situation here where a mathematician was explaining his calculations to royalty, but I can't find the details online, I don't remember enough of the story to search for it. Anyway, the King said something like, "you forgot to add God into your explanation", whereupon the mathematician replied, "God wasn't necessary".

Science cannot disprove God. It may be able to disprove certain specific claims made regarding a deity but not against the idea of God. Even disproving specific claims is challenging.

In 2005, there was a trial in Dover, Pennsylvania about Intelligent Design. In it, Michael Behe suggested an experiment that could test his claims for ID. He never actually performed the experiment.

The idea was to culture a group of flagellum-less bacteria and hold them in conditions that would encourage them to evolve flagella. The problem with this experiment is in interpreting any results. Let's see: No flagella appear- that could mean that evolution did not work or that flagella were evolving but the intelligent designer caused a miracle and removed the flagella. Flagella appear - either they evolved or the designer felt they needed them and created flagella for the bacteria. If we accept that no one can know the mind of God or that God works in mysterious ways, no result in such an experiment is meaningful. (Thank you, Richard B. Hoppe )

I suppose that scientists can (and do) argue that no flood of the proportions necessary for Noah occurred. That event might be argued for or against, but if God created such a flood and hid the evidence, we will never know.

9:30 Wherever evolutionists give any place to God, it is an abstract, cosmic mind, or cosmic hand that exploded an egg that came out to be the universes of the world.

A common error for creationists; he is mistaking evolution for all of science – here wants to argue against the Big Bang – that’s the realm of physicists, not biologists. I cheerfully accept his “…the universes of the world” remark – everyone makes little slips and such. Remember, my choice to not comment negatively means you can’t comment negatively on whatever spelling errors and non-content-related problems are found here!

12:___ But wherever evolutionism is accepted the God of the bible, biblical theism must of necessity and logic and philosophically be rejected. God must be eliminated from man's understanding of the world. But, you say, isn't that the scientific view. My dear friends, I do not know of a more loaded world view than evolution.

Any knowledgeable and reasonable evolutionist knows that he operates on presuppositions. That is presuppositions that he accepts by faith which cannot be proven scientifically.

16:25 - Some slime or mud became protoplasm...

Not exactly evolution. Abiogenesis in some form (God’s hand would be fine) had to occur before evolution had material to work on.

17:00 teachers act like red-seated baboons and its hard not to imagine that they might not have evolved from one.

I am reminded of Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce:

…the Bishop rose, and in a light scoffing tone, florid and he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution; rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey? On this Mr Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure stern and pale, very quiet and very grave, he stood before us, and spoke those tremendous words [Kwandongbrian says legend has reshaped the words so often that I don’t know what he said exactly, but it boiled down to “If you use such a cheap debating technique, I would rather have a monkey than a Bishop for a father”]

17:45 The evolutionary worldview is not only non-theistic, ruling out god, but it is an irrational conception of reality. Irrational.

If a scientist should arise on Monday morning, dress himself, drive to his laboratory, or to his university chair, or to his theological field, or whatever endeavour in the name of science and operate on the principles of his evolutionary pre-supposition, he would take his clothes off, go back to bed, take an overdose of sleeping pills and go to Hell. Why? Because, with his concept of reality, the world is irrational. It was only by chance, by luck, that the sun came up. He goes down to that laboratory, its only by chance that it'll be there. And its only by chance that the mathematical formula he used to solve yesterday won't work today.

Here is where I am pissed off. A man totally ignorant of science should be more carefully making arguments based on scientific research.

The main point of this post is to correct creationists on this matter: evolutionists can be religious. See more after the quoted section.

[he is still talking about evolutionary pre-suppositions]...if he is a physician, the prescription he writes today that was usable for a man yesterday for a certain illness will kill him dead: because it is an irrational universe. In a universe without God, without rationality, things will go wild.

Again, I don’t know when this sermon was first given. When did scientists and physicians learn about evolved immunity resistance? Quinine was once an anti-malarial drug. Now it has no effect. I still take frequent quinine supplements in a juniper-berry distillation, just in case. They make me feel better; I guess you could call them a ‘tonic’ or some such thing. Anyway, this is a crazy-bad example.

21:00 presupposition ...blind laws that can not think, they might not know they are laws, and so they might not operate.

“They might not know they are laws so they might not operate.” A wonderful argument.

Here ends the quoted section

There were a few things later in the sermon I wanted to comment on. Probability. It doesn’t directly relate to my main point but creationists misuse probability so much that I must mention it.

Dr. Griswold states that a scientist stated that for humans to evolve from the first living cells was very unlikely. The odds against it were two billion to one. I have heard other, much higher numbers and always the point is to show that evolution couldn’t have happened.

Well, outside my apartment building are a row of cars. Let’s look at ten of them. Each car has a four digit license plate (there is another set of digits and a Korean syllable, but I will leave them out as I don’t know the bounds of those terms). Forty digits then. The odds of guessing, of predicting, what those forty digits are come out to one times ten to the fortieth power against. One followed by forty zeros.

Those odds are so bad that no one could ever guess them. No guess would ever be right. The odds of any forty digit number being right- well, it’s impossible.

Does that mean the ten parking spaces are empty? No. I could go down there and record those numbers and bring them back to my computer. Lets say they are 4,3,7,5,7,9,3,3,4,1,5,…..5. What are the odds of those numbers being right? One hundred percent. I am not predicting anything. It already happened.

Back to evolution, the scientist Dr. Griswold was quoting was not making a prediction at all. Things evolve, occasional catastrophes occur, and certain animals are given a lucky break. The weather is basically random, asteroid hits are random. Although Natural Selection is not random, it is affected by random occurances. There is no reason to expect people to be inevitably created by evolution. We are one possibility of, well, two billion, I guess.

Near the end of the sermon, Dr. Griswold again mistook evolutionists for atheists and atheists for bad people. He claimed Hitler was an evolutionist and that euthanasia was an evolutionist scheme. He apparently never heard of animal husbandry, which was ongoing long before Darwin and which was tied more tightly to these events than evolution (and was misused as well – I don’t want the animal husbandry people after me). Despite being a clergyman, I guess he never studied Martin Luther - the guy didn't like Jews much and Hitler didn't have to look outside of religion to invent an excuse for his monstrosities (I'm saying Hitler could have misused religion).

Dr. Griswold died more than twenty years ago. He could not have learned of the Clergy Letter Project, in which more than 11,000 Christian clergyfolk signed a letter accepting that evolution and Christianity and evolution are not in conflict and that evolution appears to be the best explanation for life’s diversity.

He did touch on theistic evolution at the end of the sermon, claiming that such a compromise was unacceptable. He is entitled to his view but this brings me back to my point of being unable to know the mind of God. The evidence is clear, the Earth is billions of years old, flowering plants occurred before bees and other pollinating insects did and there was no world-wide flood. There was also no Tower of Babel but I don’t know if that is, um, a bible myth, or a no bible myth.

The evidence is compelling: the bible, taken literally, and the evidence don’t match. Trying to claim that they do is only going to create atheists.

Happy Darwin Day, everyone!

Darwinday.org

Yellow Dust already?

I don't want to start any panics with unverified rumours but today visibility was crappy in Sokcho.

LegoLand Exhibit at Coex

The Kwandong family spent a lot of time on the bus yesterday and went to Seoul. We visited Children's Grand Park and the Lego Exhibit at Coex Mall.

It was our first visit to Children's Grand Park and we had a great time. We could have spent the whole day there. The zoo is tiny and I am not sure how humane the conditions were but the little guy got to see a lot of animals close up. We found an alligator song (in Korean) on Yahoo Infants a few days ago and the little guy hasn't learned the word 'alligator' in Korean but can say 'Alligators, ahhh!'. We also saw many monkeys (most in outdoor cages -a little colder than most of those creatures would be used to) and the black gibbon was the most interesting. It faced the glass and watched us as closely as we watched it.

Of course, the little one was just as interested in the pigeons and magpie he saw.

We had lunch with a family friend then went to Coex, planning to see the aquarium. When I saw signs for the Lego exhibit and that it closed on the tenth, we had to investigate.

When I worked in Seoul, I had a student who 'taught' Lego. She went from house to house with various kits and young children made simple things and older, even high school age and older, students made robots and explored physics concepts with Lego creations. The full range of stuff was on display here. KwandongAlex and I made stuff with blocks bigger than my head, some intermediate size and the small pieces I was familiar with.

And that was a big part of the draw. I saw a lot of dads concentrating fiercely while they worked (and some moms bored nearly to napping). Perhaps that is why children and adults alike were charged a whopping fifteen thousand won to experience what was basically an extended Lego commercial (perhaps mothers should have been charged less).

photos in earlier posts ( the ship is from Norway and had a Norwegian flag before I changed it to the tae-kukki and I don't really think my friends really pose in such artificial stances).

A 3-D representation of the planned Kyoung-bu Canal.

All we need is a perfectly flat water surface, maybe like the ocean!

Frickin' Dinosaurs!

Peaceful, gentle herbivores my ass! I don't know why my sister named her daughter after one of these jerks!If it's not clear why I'm angry, perhaps this closeup will help.
If that's not enough, then triceratops got a little too hungry.
How were KwandongAlex and I going to run away from velociraptor after that?

My Kotesol Buddy's wedding

My friend, Graham, had planned to get (or at least told me he was getting) married later in the month, but I happened by today and there they were.
I mean, it's obviously Graham, who else has a beard like that? Ah, his fiance, LYN, normally has a smoother face, but, well, weddings are stressful; some skin problems are common on the big day.
Congratulations to the lucky couple from KwandongAlex and I.

sharing a communal soup?

The Lao-ocean Girl, as always, was way ahead of everyone else on this story. I can't find her post of double-dipping, but she discussed it a few years ago.

Yahoo has an article about finding bacteria in communal dips, just in time for the Superbowl. I presume the same information applies to the shared condiments available at a Korean restaurant. My favourite side dish is dwen-jang jigae (soy bean soup) and now I know I need to either hog it all to myself, be sure to eat first or pass on it altogether.

Make your dreams come ture!!!

I haven't commented often on misspelled English in Korean signs or the like because I mostly think it is cute or amusing.


On the other hand, if this birthday were for my child and I had spent great amounts of money, I would expect it to be done right and not end up embarrassing me.

How out of shape am I?

I've been swimming at Sorak Pines Resort and really happy about how quickly I got up to 1500 metres.

Today, I brought my watch to the pool deck and timed a few swims. The result: either I am ready to challenge Park Tae-hwan or the pool is much shorter than the short course standard of 25 metres!

What I originally figured to be about 1500 metres was actually around 1000 metres.

And I didn't notice.

It felt more or less as tiring as it should.

Anyway, I am now increasing the distance. 6 lengths took just under a minute thirty seconds so I figure that is close to 100 metres.

Other fitness news:

It seems I write more about exercise at the beginning of the new year. I do think about resolutions and such but i think it is more a matter of where I exercise. Typically in January and February, I am near scales so I see (and shudder at) my weight. My exercise is more measurable, too. Sometimes the measurements have only local meaning -I can compare distance and speed at Sorak Pines to other swims at Sorak Pines but not to other pools, for example. I mentioned years ago that ...wait, I have to back up a little.

In January, I bought 24 tickets to use the Sorak Pines pool and 30 tickets for Hae-su-pia Jimjilbang. I described, above, the pool. The jimjilbang or 'sauna' has a weight room and bathhouse facilities on one floor and dry saunas and an open area on a lower floor.

Now, I have to use the pool tickets by the end of March, but the sauna tickets are good forever. The sauna is a good place for us to take the little guy when it is too cold and windy to play outside. The open area is great for him to run around in and there is a children's area, as well.

Anyway, I am back to the sauna and its weight room but some of the weights feel surprisingly easy. Again, I can compare my lifts at the sauna to other lifts there but not to other weight rooms or historic lifts I have done.

sledding by the apartment

The hill was tiny but we had a great time. I think that comes through even with the low picture quality. We are all wearing Alaska hats- a Christmas gift from my sister. A great time for the Kwandong-family.

CLOVERFIELD...

is a fan-freaking-tastic movie!

Starting my review at the end, I spent twenty minutes or more after the movie just thinking about it in general amazement.

It was definitely a movie to see on the big screen. Firstly, although the camera shake wasn't as bad as in the Blair Witch Project, it was significant. Secondly, it is a big budget film with a lot happening on-screen despite the conceit of it being filmed on a little hand-held camera.

That said, I can imagine people renting or buying it to go frame-by-frame to see some of the action.

You do see the monster and a lot of it. I would have liked to see more but then I would like to see more of the squirrels and birds my son and I watch while outside. You see plenty.

The monster is not the most terrifying part. I will leave it a secret here, although I had read about it on other sites and it still worked on me.

I said the camera shake wasn't that bad; still, the idea didn't work as well as it did in the Blair Witch Project -a group of camera enthusiasts who would naturally reach for a camera when under stress. Here, the camera man is simply the one stuck with the job rather than being eager to do it. His motivation is not clear. In both cases, the camera being used for its light or other features did work.

I saw the movie with a coworker and his wife and we originally thought the excitement of the drive from Gangneung to Sokcho would overwhelm that of the movie (the weather is somewhere between bad and terrible) but Cloverfield scared me more than a bus fish-tailing in front of us.

Let me finish by bragging that little Sokcho has a better theatre than Gangneung. Ha-ha, Gangneungites!

Christian donations not helping South Korea help North Korea

My reader(s) may know that I am not fan of religion and I hope that was not colouring my opinion when I read a Newsweek article about Christian groups donating supplies to North Korea.

In the larger picture, many international groups, the UN, for example, have chosen not to donate supplies to North Korea because North Korea will not allow inspectors to go in and see where the food and such are going. South Korean groups have taken up the slack and are more concerned with getting at least some aid to the people even while knowing most goes to the elite.

GI Korea has followed this story with a slightly different viewpoint from mine. He believes that no aid should be given without inspection. I agree that the more inspection the better, but I can understand how, if they were my relatives, I would give plenty with the hope of them getting a little.

Recently a Canadian-Korean pastor had been detained but was released. Korean citizens are not released and the GI, again, sees this as weakness on the South Korean Government's part. In this case, I think it was not the nationality of the pastor so much as the knowledge that Christian groups are responsible for a major part of the aid received. (I may have mixed up the links to the GI -sorry 'bout that)

From the Newsweek article:

South Korean churches are competing to provide humanitarian aid to their compatriots in the atheist north. It's harder to give help than it should be.

Pastor Douglas Shin has learned the cost of good intentions-especially in North Korea. Every time the Seoul-based Protestant missionary goes in with another shipment of food for the hungry, the regime's officials grab much if not all of it for themselves, he says. Once, when he tried to negotiate a visit to the capital, Pyongyang, they demanded that he bring a whole rail car loaded with 60 tons of flour and supplies. He finally bargained them down to a 10-ton food shipment, delivered just inside the border by truck from China. At least they let him hand out some of it to people on the streets.

That willingness to cut deals is making North Korea increasingly dependent on Christians from the peninsula's southern end. While nongovernmental agencies like World Vision and Save the Children, fed up with the North's rampant corruption and lack of transparency, have closed down or sharply reduced their activities there, South Koreans are racing into the void.
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By that measure it's tough to beat the Rev. Yonggi Cho of Seoul's Full Gospel Church, the world's largest single house of worship, with 780,000 congregants. Early last month Cho and 250 fellow South Koreans attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Full Gospel's $22 million cardiac center on the banks of Pyongyang's Daedong River. ...

North Korea's few churches-Potemkin temples to give the illusion of religious freedom, critics say-are getting costly makeovers courtesy of religious groups on the far side of the DMZ. Seoul's Presbyterians are spending nearly $3 million to rebuild Bongsu Church in Pyongyang, while Baptist groups are planning to invest a similar sum in nearby Chilgol Church, which was once attended by the mother of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

The southerners aren't competing for converts; proselytizing remains strictly forbidden in the atheist North. The real prizes (for now, at least) are trophy assets-the kind that look good on church Web sites and help fill the collection plates. (My bolding)

Anything is an improvement on North Korea's present health-care system. Even in privileged Pyongyang hospitals lack electricity and running water as well as basic equipment and supplies. And the facilities outside the capital are far worse. At the People's Hospital in Kusong, some 30 miles north of Pyongyang, patients are X-rayed by a 40-year-old Hungarian-built fluoroscopy machine that emits dangerous levels of radiation. Orderlies fashion bandages from cotton grown on the hospital grounds, and intravenous drugs are administered with upended soda bottles. Conditions at Kusong would be even more desperate without donor groups like the Maryland-based Eugene Bell Foundation, which insists on delivering aid directly its final destination. If North Korean officials refuse, the foundation warehouses its aid until permission is given.

Regular site visits by donor representatives are basic to responsible NGO work, not only in North Korea but everywhere else, says Eugene Bell director Stephen Linton. "People who think otherwise are kidding themselves."(my bolding)

Seems I'm putting up the whole article. Let's see. A South Korea Christian group spent a million dollars (US or Canadian - they're the same now -Ha, Ha) to build a church that when completed, didn't have a cross (I guess that's bad - it was significant enough for the journalist to mention). The South Korean Jogye Buddhists rebuilt a temple at the Gumgang tourist area but it was seized by the North Korean branch of the order.

The SK government has had no luck in the construction, or supplying of hospitals and recommends against it. They supply doctors at a few hospitals in North Korea to help the citizens and teach the North Korean doctors and find that is the hardest thing for the NK government to profit from.

They also point out that Cho's church-funded hospital will provide surgery costing about $3000 in a country with a $760 per capita income.

Well, the GI and I agree that No M-hyun's government didn't treat North Korea with sufficient firmness. Although I can sympathize with the motivations of the Christian groups making donations, I don't think they are helping the situation either.

Water-Fire Festival

I think the Water-fire festival is newly invented and mainly an excuse to party in Sokcho in the off-season. That's not a bad reason, by any means. I'm just pointing out that it isn't the creation of Sokcho's rampant Roman Catholic citizen's to have a pre-Lent party; the main excuse Canadian cities use for winter carnivals.

Actually, I've been away most Januaries, working at one camp or another, so this festival could have been occurring for years.
The mascot scared the heck out of KwandongAlex.
A friendly guy took this picture for us. It would be mean-spirited to complain about his cutting the bear in half; the camera screen was uniformly black until the flash fired so he was just pointing it in the right direction.

The festival continues through the weekend. There were many craft tents for children and the fires, candles, assortment of lights and cold, fresh air are romantic, I guess, but activities for adults seemed scarce. I'm sorry, as I wrote that, I recalled that two Human-powered ferry boats were set up- possibly for racing. I would like to compete in that.

I notice, too late, that Haeundae had it's Polar Bear Swim recently. I entered one year and had a great time but hadn't read anything in later years and thought the whole thing had been cancelled. I want the Sokcho Fire and Ice Festival to include one.

How about this: for New Year's Day or Lunar New Year's Day in 2009, we have a Polar Bear Swim at YangYang Beach, next to Naksansa and Naksan Beach Hotel with it's Hae-su Sauna for recovery afterwards. Depending on responses, I will begin to make plans and try to organize the event.

Perjury trials for Canadian Police Officers

English language bloggers in Korea frequently question the workings of the Korean justice system and often reserve our harshest criticism for the police of this country for their apparent laziness and corruption. We have held the police of our own countries as being better than the ones here.

I should make one set of changes to the above paragraph. Although I think the statements are true, they refer especially to me. Imagine the paragraph above as, "I frequently the workings...reserve my harshest...." As the son and grandson of Ontario Provincial Police officers and coming from a country where a national symbol is the mounted police officer, I normally think the best of my country’s police.

This morning, I saw this news on Yahoo Canada’s front page: Police officers across Canada face once-rare perjury charges

Quote: At least eight officers, either active or recently retired, will heading be to courts in Toronto, Winnipeg and Regina over the next two months accused of an offence that carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

I do not think Canadian police officers are uniformly corrupt (nor do I think Koreans are either, just a little less professional than I would like) as at least one of the commenters felt. I actually like to read this sort of thing once in a while to remind myself that I did not come here from a perfect place and shouldn’t hold Korean services in contempt

PSA for winter pedestrians

Today, I learned, entirely by chance, how to warm my feet up if they feel cold.

I have a pair of sort of half-boots. Not at all suitable for hiking, they are a little warmer than shoes and keep snow out better than shoes as well. My boots are a few years old and it doesn't take long for my socks to get wet these days. If I stop for a few minutes and no longer keep my feet heated by walking action, they feel cold pretty quickly.

Now, I have learned that when my feet feel cold, I should simply not look where I am walking for a few steps. Almost certainly, there will be a broken half-tile or curb hidden by snow for me to half step onto...

My gosh, one's foot immediately feels warm, almost hot, after flexing it over until one is nearly standing on ankle bones!

It took a few minutes to walk normally after the incident, but that foot felt warm all the way home after that.

Good boots might be a better idea, all things considered.

RIP, Sir Edmund Hillary

One of the world's great heros has passed away. (Yahoo News)

High and middle school camp for Gangneung Students

Despite more than a few complaints before and during, the camp actually went well. The pace was tough; we had a group of students for two and a half days, a half day off, then another group. Each day was around 14 hours long and there was a lot of stuff to be covered. Two and a half days isn't that long for the students but repeating it three times wore us down. Our assistants, Kwandong U's English Lit students, probably worked even more hours and were unfailingly cheerful.

I intend to post about the good and bad parts of camp but not now (and probably I will wait too long and let it go). Here are a few photos from camp.

Students had time to learn some shopping English then had a flea market where they could buy and sell items. Each student was expected to bring something to sell and most did. Students were given play money to shop with, which confused me. The item they brought (and bought) cost real money so had 'real' value. Other items might have a greater or lesser 'real' value, but most students were taught to suggest around ten dollars of play money to have the ability to bargain and haggle.

Anyway, the atmosphere was pretty quiet so I tried to sell some milk tea. Click to enlarge.The first two camps were for high school students and the third for middle school students. The middle school students were not nearly as active in class and this student slept in two different classes. I became annoyed enough to stuff his hood with snack food and affix a sign to his back. The other students told him about it so he didn't wear it around the camp so I was disappointed.

Kwandongbrian: motivating other bloggers!

In reading about the death of Bobby Fischer last night, I immediately went to my chess-loving friend's blog and realized that he would sleeping. I didn't have his phone number to wake him up and get him to work so I emailed him (too bad he doesn't have a "You've got mail" audio clip to awaken him in emergencies like these).

Anyway, he got right to work; turns out what I knew about Fischer is all that people care about: He was a anti-Semitic crazy man who won some games many years ago.
Check out Port Coquitlam Odysseus for more.

Treehouse on Lake Muskoka

Here is a pretty cool treehouse I found online and it is to be found somewhere near my hometown of Bracebridge.

From the site:

Posing as a Japanese lantern on stilts, Kos’ creation floats within the fir trees on Lake Muskoka, Ontario.

What’s more, the design frames spectacular views of the forest, from inside, out, down and up!

Now, I think it is a cool design but homes near Lake Muskoka generally have a view of the lake rather than the forest. I wonder if this treehouse does have a view of the lake but that view wasn't photographed: trees are pretty interchangable but I suspect that I could identify the location (or huge swaths of where it isn't) if I saw some shoreline.

Some day I will own my own house and I have been wondering what I would want it to look like. I have matured enough to no longer want the largest house possible although not enough to cancel my plans for a fireman's pole (to descend from the second floor to the first, not for dancing, you pervert!)

HT to Freshhome and Clicked. (Do I need to hat tip blogs with thousands more readers than I have?)

Another reason to be glad I'm married.

Its funny that in appreciating one's spouse, the trivial reasons seem somehow profound and the big reasons are trite. "She makes me happy to enter the house", "Caring for her makes me feel cared for" and the like are all good (and true) but unremarkable.

I've been at a camp for the last ten days. Well, I was at camp for six days, spent a day at home and returned to camp for three days. After the break, I forgot my towel and asked a co-worker is he could lend me one from his home (he went home each evening). Naturally generous, he gave me a towel of his and it was a western style full-size towel, an unexpected treat after years of drying with hand towels.

Also unexpected was the history of my friend that it revealed. As it absorbed warm water, it released collected odours. I could tell that my friend's bathroom is a little musty, that he smokes but only occasionally and that he probably used it as an oven-mitt when grilling meat.

I realize that this post seems unusually petty, even for me, in highlighting the housekeeping patterns of my friend but on the plus side, I am complimenting my wife in encouraging careful cleaning at home. It is not that my wife is a June Cleaver sort, doing all the cleaning; I do most of the dishes and all of the vacuuming and some of the laundry, but that she sets a good example for me to keep up with.

Nama-Lama, thanks for always having towels that smell fresh from the drying rack.

first chung-dae hike of the year

Very early in January, I hiked up Ulsan-bowi. I seem to have misplaced my photos but I may post one or two when I do find them.

The last six days were spent at a camp for Gangneung High School students and a later post will describe that experience. I arrived home yesterday and early this morning went up the mountain.

This is a small, easily accessable peak and I normally carry nothing but the camera but with the snow, I dug out my toys. I brought my half-size crampons and a hiking stick with me and should have brought my gators, as well.

The snow was normally ankle deep but the wind carried snow from the valleys and dumped it on the ridges so some drifts were over knee deep. I made it up without crampons but decided to put them on for the descent. I am not sure if I needed them but they made me more adventurous and fast on steeper slopes. I only wish they were easier to put on and take off.

Nun Saram (눈사람)

There are two problems with attempting this pun. First, it's hard to get good contrast with snow and (related, I suppose), the shape may appear to be more 유방 than 눈.

For my mother, and in case the picture is of that poor a quality, Nun means both snow and eye. The picture is not of a snowman but an eyeman. Further complicating the issue is the iris and pupil look a little similar to the naughty bits of a woman's breast.

Father-of-the-year? Probably not.

I have been considering writing a post about fatherhood over the past few weeks. Over that time time, or a bit longer, parenting has become more enjoyable. I couldn't have said I was becoming a better parent but that parenting was better than I, childless until age 37 and comfortable in that state, had imagined. My post would have described the ways I have been connecting with my son.

Last night I connected with him in a new way by giving him stomach flu. He's had a bad night. We all have.

Today, I go to a camp for a week. I can only hope that when I return, the wife and mother-in-law have either dodged the bullet or recovered completely by then.

Starting to recover

About 30 hours later and 3 kilos lighter, I can walk across the room without stopping for a rest. Acute gastro-enteritis sure beat the snot -and more objectionable stuff- out of me but I should be fine by tomorrow. (Spellcheck tells me 'gastro' is not a word but it looks right to me).

The Big Hominid described a stomach flu going on in Britain and when I commented that I might have it as well...nothing. Thanks for the sympathy, jerk! Oh, and it you're visiting, I can't find online the name of the crowd control gas from Blish's Cities in Flight (its effect was similar to the flu I have now).

Justice is a bitch (and perhaps a little humourous)

Yesterday morning, my wife went to work, leaving me, our son and her mother (visiting for a few weeks) at home.

She called me soon after she left to warn me that someone had thrown up in the large elevator. If you were wondering, our apartment building has two elevators, one larger than the other. If I wanted to go somewhere today, I should take the smaller elevator.

I told my mother-in-law. Well, I tried to tell her. what she heard was that her daughter had thrown up in the elevator and that, apparently, I didn't care.

While I was watching the little guy, she went out and cleaned the elevator. I might have seen her leave but we have a few jars and such in front of the apartment and probably thought she was doing something with them.

She worried about her poor daughter all day and likely was thinking a few bad things about her uncaring son-in-law.

When we were all home in the evening and my wife learned about the problem, my first reaction was to laugh a little. Then, I felt bad thinking about the poor woman cleaning some stranger's puke. If you have the proper distance, as my readers do, that may add to the humour.

Later that evening, I felt a tension in my stomach and tried to use the toilet and to burp without any relief. I went to bed around ten and woke up at eleven to use the toilet. I woke up at eleven-thirty to use the toilet. I woke up after twelve to use the toilet, and to hold a bucket to my face while sitting on the toilet.

I will hold off on further details. I currently have nothing left to expel and am feeling a tiny bit better.

Still, I will work on my communication with my mother-in-law and try not to send her about playing in stranger's vomit ever again.

7:00AM at the Beach

The Kyoungsangnam-family are visiting and we all got up early and went to the beach to watch the sunrise.

In addition to being dam' cold, it was also dam' fun. We had to park a kilometre away because there were so many people but the comradry improved the atmosphere.
We were in time to get a space on a pier with an unobstructed view and all were dressed well enough that we could cheerfully exclaim, "Cold, isn't it".
A few moments after the sun appeared, bolloons were launched. (Click to enlarge)
The intrepid explorer (I guess you could click to enlarge, if you wanted to).

7:00AM at the Beach

The Kyoungsangnam-family are visiting and we all got up early and went to the beach to watch the sunrise.

In addition to being dam' cold, it was also dam' fun. We had to park a kilometre away because there were so many people but the comradry improved the atmosphere.
We were in time to get a space on a pier with an unobstructed view and all were dressed well enough that we could cheerfully exclaim, "Cold, isn't it".
A few moments after the sun appeared, bolloons were launched. (Click to enlarge)
The intrepid explorer (I guess you could click to enlarge, if you wanted to).

Happy New Year and all that!

Happy New Year!

Today, I managed my fifty-eighth climb of the mountain behind the apartment, six more than I had set as a goal. The goal was of value in pushing me to hike in the morning a few times a week before work. Still, as readers may know, I set the goal of averaging one hike a week only in August, with eight prior hikes to my credit. In other words, I was hiking more than two times a week just to catch up.

With that in mind, I guess I should look at 104 hikes for 2008 or even more. I don't think I can focus on that long term a goal so I intend instead to look at Jan and Feb, my time off from regular classes, and set other goals later.

So, I want to jog, hike or swim every day -I recently bought a set of tickets for the Seorak Pines Spa, which has a nice pool.

I had planned to aim for the Sokcho Triathlon in mid June but I will be away for that event. Instead, I want to run in the March 1st race around Youngnang Lake. In 2007, I managed 35 minutes for seven km. That isn't fast but it is much faster than I had expected.

I want to do a serious bike trip this spring. Perhaps I could ride to Busan along the coast then return inland.

In other areas, I want to put some real effort toward learning Korean. I am currently reading one book a day from KwandongAlex's (age 30 months) collection. I can learn a few words on the first reading, practice pronunciation and in a later reading will concentrate more on the grammar.

We will go to Canada this summer, and I want the little guy comfortable in the water before we go. He enjoys being in my arms in the water but is unable to put his face in. I took him to the Seorak Pines pool but the air was too cold and we spent most of the time in a 'warm' (not hot) tub.

Regarding TESL, I want to make useful homework and review available online. Using Windows Movie Maker or Jumpcut online, I will try to have a pronunciation segment and substitution drill online for each class. That will depend on when my university decides to let us know what texts and classes we will have in the Spring 2008 semester.

I hope all my readers enjoy the end of this year and wish all the best for 2008.

kwandongbrian gets schooled!

GI Korea posted a summary of drug related offences in Korea by locals and by foreigners. In the comments I defended the GI, saying something like, "the new visa regs are being enacted because media falsely accuses foreigners of being more likely to use drugs." The Marmot then piped up and said, sure foreigners are no more likely to use drugs but Canadian ESL teachers are much more likely to. Then, the jerk, backed up his claim with numbers.

I do not use recreational drugs. I am curently taking some pills after a visit to the dentist and I am entirely sure why the dentist prescribed them.

Anyway, Canadians, clean up (y)our act. I am embarrassed.

Bak Tae-hwan goes coach shopping

In this post, I engage in a bit of name-dropping. I name several Olympians whom I have met but only one would recognize my name. To the others, I was only one of a multitude. I offer their names only to describe what was public knowledge and claim no special insight into their choices or behavior.

.

In my youth, I was a competitive swimmer of barely national caliber. I managed to scrape past the standards and qualify for a few national championship swim-meets.

To be quite honest, Bak Tae-hwan is as far beyond me in swimming ability as I am to the average Korean.

Which suggests that I cannot comment on the most recent Bak Tae-hwan news from personal experience. Ah, that news being he has fired his coach and is in the market for a new one. The new coach would be his third.

It is the second time for Park to change his coach this year. In January, when Park decided to train with coach Park outside the Korea Sports Center in Taeneung, he split with former coach Roh Min-sang, who had taught him for 10 years.

Still, even without experience at his level of swimming, I have seen world champions up close and I can certainly compare their coach/swimmer relationships with his.

I met and spoke briefly with Alex Baumann, at one time the world's best swimmer, a few times at swim meets and worshipped his ability. I also spoke to his coach, Dr. Tihanyi, as I was considering going to that university.

I raced him in the 200 Individual Medley at a meet in Laurentian University. I presume he raced the clock for no one came near him at that little meet. In fact, I paced him for the first fifty metres, mostly as a protest to my own coach for entering me in a race I disliked so much.*

And that is the key to my confusion over Mr. Bak’s revolving door regarding coaches. A coach is someone you need to have faith in. You can argue at times, but the coach is the expert. The Olympian I knew best (not all that well, but best), Dave Schemilt, once ranked fourth in the world for 1500 metres freestyle, followed his coach when the coach changed jobs and locations. Baumann’s loyalty to his coach, Dr Tihanyi was well known. I think Victor Davis followed his coach, Cliff Barry, when he changed jobs as well.

Perhaps there is a cultural element. I am not exactly comparing this situation to Korea’s dumping of Cha Bum-gun after a bad showing by the national soccer team but Koreans do seem comfortable changing course frequently.

I am thinking more of the famous stereotype of focus and concentration and fanaticism in Koreans. I think Mr. Bak thinks he can provide the motivation and focus internally and only needs an assistant for some technique tweaking.

Finally, there seems to be a strange dynamic regarding the sponsor, Speedo.

``Speedo and Park's parents have meddled in training Park along with the low salary,'' said the coach.

The meddling parents part is nothing new. All swim coaches (and I was one) need to be prepared for second-guessing parents. Again, I don't have international experience, but I have never heard of a sponsor being all that 'hands-on' in the actual training.

While I hope he does well, I fear that changing coaches so often will hurt him at the Olympics.

Oh, one Canadian example of a swimmer choosing coaches would be Mark Tewksberry. From Wikipedia: For some years he ranked as one of the top backstrokers in the world; never a strong below-the-water swimmer, he was unmatched on the surface, but, as the importance of below-the-water swimming increased, Tewksbury's ranking began to fall.

He eventually hired a synchronized swimming coach to train him in breath-holding techniques. That seems like a minor adjustment compared to Mr. Bak's though.

---___---

*My coach had a coherent plan and looking back I can see that if I had followed it more closely, I would have done better over all in my swimming career. I still have my problems with his choice of events for me but I respect and admire him for his efforts all the same.

Camp Kyle looks a mess.

I gotta disagree with GI Korea; Camp Kyle looks like a "no use area" to me.


Just kidding. Of course, this is Taean, where many are working to clean up the mess from an oil spill. If this pic were taken on Friday, my wife might be amongst those shown. On another day, it could be American soldiers (GI Korea, again), doing their unsung part to help.

As Rick (formerly of Ayankabroad blog) noted in a comment elsewhere on my blog, there is a lot of garbage in the bottom right of the photo. In that picture, I suggested that what looked like long construction blankets were part of the cleanup. In this picture, well, it sure looks like garbage.

Kwandongwife volunteering at Taean

VERY early today, my wife, as part of a group of Coasties, went to Taean to assist in cleaning up the oil spill. She'll return later tonight, having spent a full day on site and near to ten hours on the road to and from. Tomorrow, she will go to the office as part of the full staffing plan they are following to be as busy as the West coast Cost Guard staff.

If only there were an organization dedicated to enforcing the law

I am the son and grandson of police officers, from a country where the police are relatively well respected. I want to respect Korean police but too often I read stories like this. The whole article is upsetting but I am particularly discouraged by the ending.

First, I need to define 'coffee shop' or 다방 (dabang). Maybe a dabang can be a simple coffee shop but a 'ticket dabang' (they do use the English word) is a place where you can sign out a girl from the shop to drink coffee with you. You have probably guessed that drinking coffee is only one of a variety of things the girl will do and the ticket dabangs are understood to be fronts for prostitution.

A couple running a ticket dabang went to a chat site for teens and posted a job listing. When two girls, 15 and 16 years of age (that would be Korean age, so probably 14 and 15, possibly younger) applied, they were kidnapped and forced into prostitution.

All this is terrible. The attitude of the police officer below is, well, vomit inducing.

A source at the police said, “they [the owners of the dabang] had been punished for a similar offense about four or five months before. We really need to do something about teen prostitution in these dabangs and the chatting sites that so many of the teens use.”

Gee, if only there were laws against prostitution or kidnapping or something.

I am indebted to Korea Beat for translating the article. Yeah, thanks a lot, guys, for ruining my day.

Hurray for the volunteers!

I'm not really sure why I am still in Sokcho and not spending the night in a Minbak or something near Mallipo.
Ironically, one reason I am not helping clean up the oil spill on the west coast is that my wife is in the Coast Guard, an organization that is busy with the clean-up. She is not over there but to show support (or something, I can't quite figure it out), they are staying late in their offices, often until 10 pm. I have to be available to watch the little guy and so neither of us are doing anything particularly constructive about the oil spill.

The Korea Times has an article about volunteers who are helping. I wish them all the best.

Finally, a good reason to marry a Korean

If you want to, there are, in fact, millions of good reasons to marry a Korean.

The rest of this post is about the new E-2 regs. To be honest, I don't have much new to say; this is just a PSA for anyone who comes fresh to the blog and perhaps for my family to see what's going on. I offer some links at the bottom of the post.

These days, I am particularly happy that the woman of my dreams turned out to be Korean. Two days ago, the new visa regulations went into effect. These regs affect E-2 visa holders. Those married to a Korean have a different visa, the F-2. The logic appears to be that if my mother-in-law decided that I am a good enough person to marry her daughter, I must be a pretty good guy. In my case, of course, she was right.

E-2 visa holders, however, are likely to be drug-abusing, womanizing jerks with fake degrees and more care is needed to find the few who are actually clean and decent people. Well, that is the view of immigration officials (from the Korean Herald):

The new rule is the result of widespread uneasiness over the credibility of foreign English teachers; this came to a head in late October when Christopher Paul Neil, a Canadian English teacher who taught here for four years, was arrested in Thailand on child molestation charges. The recent spate of degree-forgery scandals involving high-profile Korean figures in various professions accelerated the calls to screen out unqualified teachers.

The point foreigners make is that Neil had no criminal record but did have a good degree that was actually in education. Under the new regs, he would have been welcomed into the country.

I am sure that some foreigners have used forged degrees. I am reminded of a friend who worked in Thailand. He was a straight arrow but his university doubted the qualifications of some of his co-workers and set up a second thesis defence for them. They were unable to properly defend their theses and were given the boot.

Still, these days degree forgery appears to be more of a Korean thing.

The new requirements do make sense. Proving that one's degree is genuine and that one does not have a criminal record are good things. The clearly spoken and explicit rationale are what makes this so annoying. One blogger looked at some numbers and found that foreigners are less likely to be criminals than Koreans.

There's one other things that makes it so annoying. No one is really clear on what the regulations are or how to implement them (again, from the Herald):

"I think it is a little short-sighted. Given all the work that will be required at bureaucratic levels, it would take months to get everybody to cooperate and to fulfill all the criteria in a timely manner. It could provoke a bureaucratic nightmare," said Cameron Wood, a professor at Chung-Ang University.

The ministry, however, said it launched an all-out effort at the very outset to publicize the implementation of these changes.

"On Nov. 19, we began distributing information on the changes through various organizations, including the Education Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, about 30 immigration offices across the nation, and the regional associations of private language schools. We also posted the guidelines on our website and other relevant government homepages," said a Justice Ministry official.

"On Dec. 10, we also invited consuls from embassies of the United States, Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to inform them of the new law. We also answered Canada's questions on E-2 visa rules in writing. We also trained our personnel who will take charge of the matter," he added.

On December 10, they spoke to consuls from various embassies about regulations that would take effect in five days. Yeah, that's good planning.

...

"I took several foreign instructors to the hospital affiliated with our school. Although it is one of the largest-scale hospitals in Seoul, hospital officials say they don't conduct such tests listed in the required medical report," a university official said.

In Korea, drug tests are usually conducted at police agencies; hospitals do not conduct such tests, since there has been no demand for them, hospital officials explained.

The ministry says they are aware of the problem.

"We contacted several hospitals to see if they conduct such tests. They said they don't without a sufficient demand for such tests. We found, after some research, that the Health Ministry-affiliated Seoul Medical Science Institute (www.scllab.co.kr) does the tests," said a ministry official.

"If you take the test at designated hospitals, they will ask the institute to analyze the test. This will take less than one week, and cost less than 10,000 won ($11). The result will be sent by mail. We have yet to obtain the list of hospitals that are linked to the institute. We will soon release them," he added.

Perhaps they publicized the changes but did not discuss them with their own infrastructure.

The EFL Geek has been covering this issue closely. He has so many posts on the subject that i suggest just checking his archives for December and November 2007.

The Metropolitician, in his usual biting way, describes how he feels.

I quoted the Korea Herald but they lock their archive after a week. The Big Hominid has the full text.

A gum-do buddy has document trouble

A friend of mine from my Hae Dong Geum Do days is having trouble proving his degree is genuine because of its latin phrases. Good luck Tony. Article here. Thanks to the Marmot.

UPDATE: I knew a man of the same name but likely this is not the same guy. I still wish him luck, though.

Domestic incident in my apartment

There are no (major or unusual) problems within the Kwandong-family.

Yesterday, I was helping the little-guy with something and heard some wailing in the background. I didn't pay much attention to it because, well, the little guy can really wail on occasion, and he might be loudest when expressing happiness.

Eventually, it became clear that this was an upset sound from an adult woman. After a bit, I heard it more clearly and looked down into the parking lot to see a barefoot woman being chased by a man. I was still uncertain what was happening because they dodged around cars in a way that looked almost playful- except for the barefoot part.

Finally, the woman cowered behind the security guard who did a good job of settling things down. I returned to the apartment only to notice that while I'd left the door open, a visitor had let herself in.

I don't really care for little dogs but this one was energetic and friendly... and quiet! The little guy was very excited to have a visitor but not quite sure what to do. He would approach the dog and in stepping away would become concerned that the dog followed. I think he is more used to dogs we meet outside; dogs with leashes that one can approach and move away from at will.

.

After things had settled down a bit, I carried my son and the dog down the hallway, soon pinpointing angry noises coming from above. I found the unhappy couple, with the man appearing to be leaving, travel bag in hand. The woman saw her dog in my arm and picked him up, thanking me.

.

Their previous wailing was only a prelude to the new wailing when the little guy realized we were departing without the dog. I fear that I may have hearing loss in my right ear.

.

I wonder what a good opening would be for me to go up and ask to borrow their dog.

"You've been fighting and screaming at your husband, or shacked-up boyfriend, or
whatever; you're probably not in good condition to care for a dog. How about giving her to me for a few hours?"

.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Baby news

The following story or event in my life is going to be boring for those without children, moderately interesting to those with young children, and thrilling to my mother. I could have emailed her and wrote about what happened last night or even told her on MSM chat. I think, though, that I want to remember and record this for my benefit. Perhaps when I am angry with my son, I could read it and relive it to calm myself down.

My little guy hates having his hair washed. I am not sure if it is the water in his eyes or ears that bothers him most, or perhaps he got a mouth or nose-full once or twice. It’s definitely clear that he hates it, though.

Yesterday, he was having a bath, more for play than any other reason. I was watching him, sitting on the closed toilet lid. We had the door shut to keep the warm moist air in and both were naked.

He started to splash water around and after he got me with a ladle-full, I sat closer to the tub. He poured water over my head and seemed to get the idea of washing my hair.

He poured water over my hair. It took him a long time because, well, he’s a baby and most ladles arrived over my head with very little water remaining. Still, he managed.

Then, he got some shampoo. Actually, he used the closest bottle, which was rinse. One hand kept my head in position so he simply pushed the spigot on the bottle and then scooped up the rinse from the side of the tub.

He was very careful about using washing my hair completely. Firstly, he used about a litre of rinse. After that, he massaged my hair and head for a surprisingly long time. I had to encourage him to go back to ladling water to remove the shampoo and he continued to massage my head as he poured the water.

It was a wonderful ten minutes or so-perhaps not that long, but I felt close to him right up until I had to wrestle him back into clothes. Then the wailing and confrontation with a totally alien consciousness returned.

Perhaps another time I will try to record a minute or so of his washing my hair. I warn you that at least one of us will be dressed, though.
___---___---___

In other baby news, a certain Gangneung blogger may have to turn in his el-camino for a more family-friendly vehicle as he is now a father. Congrats to Paktheelcamino!

Excited to see this movie

Edited:
The Golden Compass.

Second edit: More spelling errors - I am having trouble with firefox, so I am using Explorer right now. I really miss the automatic spell-checking.

I had a graphic from the movie but noticed I had mispelled a word in the title. Considering how I tease people -gently - about such things, thanks for not tormenting me on the subject.

Anyway, in correcting the title, I lost the graphic.

I still want to see the movie.

murder and stolen military weapons in Kanghwa-do

Last night my wife, a member of the Korean Coast Guard received a message on her phone that weapons were missing in Kang-hwa do. I didn't understand why Sokcho would be notified, being on the other side of the country and all that.

It turns out that the weapons were not merely missing but that soldiers had been assaulted (and one killed) and the weapons were stolen. I had been under the impression that a routine inventory at a Coast Guard arsenal had come up one short.

This is a country with no firearms (except a few shotguns that farmers use, it seems) so missing rifles (to say nothing of grenades) are a big deal.

I wouldn't have mentioned the news, considering it possibly confidential, but Korean news sources are reporting it and the Marmot has an English report.

Hike 46

Tomorrow should be hike 49.

The views are great during this cold weather.

While resting on the peak, I heard an occasional buzzing and thought it was someone's phone on vibrate. Turns out, it was the camera on this fire-watch station. All the kiosks are manned these days.
On my way home, I learned the road, under construction forever, is now finished. Getting to and from the mountain will now be a little more challenging.
In possibly-related news, there is a global helium shortage.