Outside In by Mr. Kai

I got an on-line memo from a friend of mine I’ve known for a couple of years. I haven’t talked to her for months so I almost deleted her from my contact list. She happened to visit my another blog and read the news of my disease and that’s how she decided to memo me. Too sad all she could or was willing to do was to send me several christian books. Christian books only exist to be mocked by me. I don’t believe I will gain any mental strength from reading the book. I’d much more appreciate is the money for which the books are worth.

Korean National Assembly passed the bill implementing the WTO rice negotation. It’s so mind-numbing. I was trying to locate a report that a newspaper said was published yesterday to no avail.

No good. No good.

Trackbacked to http://blog.joins.com/clickj2001/5582255

A photographer who works for Joong-Ang Daily News of Korea snapped a Democratic Labor Party demonstrator’s neck to secure the photo line. According to the trackbacked posting, there is a protocol among newspaper photographers called ‘photo line.’ A photo line is a line that photographers aren’t supposed to cross. It is drawn when there is competition for better photo spots so that photographers can take photos without interfering with each other.

News say the demonstrator stepped over the photo line in his zealous effort to protest when the Joong-Ang Daily’s photographer wrapped his arm around the demonstrator’s neck and pulled him back. It isn’t known whether the photographer took fabulous shots after the neck-snapping.

Coincidentally or not, the focus of the photographs was on Mr. Suk Hyun Hong, CEO of Joong-Ang Daily News, walking into the Prosecutors’ Office for an investigation of his bribery charges. So, the simple picture is like this. Joong-Ang Daily News’ photographer pulled the demonstrator’s neck backward to secure the photo line for Joong-Ang Daily News’ CEO. (or to protect something else as others might properly guess?) It is the official stance of Joong-Ang Daily regarding the incident.

To the disappointment of the Joong-Ang Daily, many bloggers beg to differ on the photographer’s motive for the neck-snapping. Bloggers made the word “Body Guard Reporter” deriding the photographer’s act as one of body guard, not that the profession of body guarding is any more laughable than that of reporting.

The photographer’s supervisor wrote in his blog (the trackbacked blog) justifying the neck-snapping as a hard and fast protocol among reporters. He gave an example of a Brazilian photographer who was beat up by other photographers along the photo line at the 1988 Olympic Games because he stepped over the photo line and interrupted the most important moment of photo taking. He said the Brazilian photographer even had to apologize to the other photographers who beat him up as well as he had his reporter id taken away and kicked out of the stadium.

So according to the supervisor, it is the protocol that gave photographers the almighty power of choking a demonstrator’s neck whenever and wherever he crosses the precious ‘photo line.’ Which also means, when you happen to run across a group of photographic reporters drawing a line on the ground, you better stay away from the line or your neck will be choked. Gosh, should I get a photo-line insurance to protect my neck from being choked?

Talking about the Brazilian photographer who were brutally beat up and had to apologize, I would simply assume the world of photographers are like the jungle. When you break the protocol, you are simple beaten up and you also have to apologize. There is a latin word that proximately describes the deal, the quid-pro-quo, while in this case you get beaten up for crossing the photo line. As the practice of quid-pro-quo predates the modern notion of legalism, can I safely say the photographers are living in their own small private world that is more than 2000 years old?

The supervisor avidly denies the neck-snapping wasn’t an act of body-guardiing Mr. Hong. Many bloggers strongly believe that the photographer chocked the demonstrator out of overzealous loyalty toward his employer. I don’t know the truth. Like they say in the X-files, the truth is in the photographer’s mind. Suffice it to say that many times impression is stronger than the fact.

Debating on the health insurance system seems to last forever while the correct answer looks quite obvious by now after we have observed the results of the two extremely different health insurance systems around the globe. The US’s private health insurance and the government-operated system of the UK, Taiwan, etc.

Tim Worstall, in his post, tries to refute Paul Krugman’s column on health insurance.

It is true that adverse selection exists in any insurance system. I don’t think Krugman was saying adverse selection triggers the necessity of government-operated system. He was rather saying that there’s gotta be a government-operated system in some fields like health insurance.

Now, what makes health insurance (and/or auto insurance) different from other insurance?

The answer is quite obvious from our own experience from the prive health insurance system. It’s not the adverse selection per se but the adverse consequences from the adverse selection typical in the fields where the private system fails. The government-controlled insurance system was introduced in auto insurance because the adverse consequences were too much to ignore. Same thing with the health insurance. Krugman’s examples show that. David Himmelstein has more about it.

I didn’t know they still do black marketing in and around the US Army posts in Korea. But Gardner in Korea shows how it’s still done in the article How Stuf f Works: The Black Market.

Goods from the US were considered of good quality and functioned as symbols that the users can afford high price products. But that was the story from the pre-2000 era, or so did I think.

I guess English teachers in Korea can be easily tempted to share in the less profitable than before but still pretty good business. Even I am tempted to, though I’m not a US citizen.

Mr. Kai is a pen name. He opened this blog to communicate with other bloggers speaking English. He has managed a blog in Korean for long even though he mixed English postings once in a while. Realizing it isn’t a very neat idea to manage a blog in more than one language, Mr. Kai decided to open a personal blog in English, which is this blog.

Mr. Kai has many blogs other than his personal blogs in Korean and English. All other blogs are dedicated for special purposes and aren’t fit to be personal blogs. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to disclose his other blogs here because it’s redundant information.

Mr. Kai will be mostly communicating with bloggers that have one thing in common with him. Is it too obvious to say?

Now, let’s roll.

Lo and behold! I’ll wreak a havoc on this blog of my own creation.
hahaha