Bush cancels South Korea trip.
The people of South Korean were unwilling to serve him Texan steaks.
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June 24, 2008
Bushian Diplomacy
Comments
I can’t believe the silence on this topic. Where’s mono? Sloth just came back. So come on Korea.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 25 2008 3:01 utc | 1
He’s a lame duck. We’ve totally lost interest. Aliens could scoop him and nobody would notice for months. The most powerful man in the world is a nobody. I really question why anybody else would want the job, and question those who do.
We should have a design competition, open to all. Very simply, design the Bush Presidential Library. Unlimited budget but programme is limited to 2,500sf including reception lobby and public washrooms. Energy efficient solutions are welcome, but not if they carry a price tag.
Felt pen sketches, or finger paint renderings, will suffice, and must be received by MoA not later than noon, 4 July 2008.
This competition is not officially sanctioned by AIA or RAIC.
Have fun.
Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Jun 25 2008 3:43 utc | 2
Allen/Vancouver: here are a few appropriate ideas for shrubs library
Posted by: Lizard | Jun 25 2008 4:08 utc | 3
Mono’s posts have met with thunderous silence (it took someone else to reduntantly post about Kucinich’s impeachment bid before it could be discussed here), so he’s taken the hint.
Anyway, the issue here isn’t the safety of US beef (which, incidentally, was contaminated in 2003 by Canadian stock which was, in its turn, contaminated by UK stock). The issue is Lee Myung-bak’s explicit position of putting his US and business interests above the will of the South Korean people. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or, in Konglish, “crazy cow”) conveniently highlights that particular sentiment.
President Lee is aware of the real issue and has had to drop some of the Vidkun Quisling from his public face. As criminal and megalomaniacal as President Lee is, it must have hurt him personally more than professionally to have said “We will do our best for our people, humbly paying attention to public opinion,” and “”From now, I will make a fresh start” a few days ago. Doesn’t matter what he says at the end of the day, Koreans also know that actions speak louder than words.
There are other issues that could have highlighted President Lee’s apathy towards the welfare of the governed as easily. For example, the fact that President Lee’s policies have been letting the won slide to keep pace with the plummeting dollar in order to “facilitate trade” with the US even though this necessarily means a rise in the SoKo’s cost of living or the insane and pointless Grand Canal plan which would do nothing for SoKo except to quarter a peninsula that’s already been halved, but would be an enduring monument to President Lee’s ego.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 25 2008 4:13 utc | 4
Mono, mono, mono!
I read you with relish, my Man.
If I were brighter, or more well read, I might have intelligent posts to comment here, but …. Well, know you are much appreciated, and missed, by me and I’m sure a ton of other readers. Please do not fade out. Thanks!
Posted by: Jake | Jun 25 2008 4:22 utc | 5
Very much appreciated, Jake. I wasn’t fishing, though. I was just answering Juannie’s question at #1 above. I’m still here taking it all in.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 25 2008 4:34 utc | 6
LIZARD
Thanks so much for the delightful link.
And A.M. Stearn is doing a $500 million design for the real Bush library – what are they going to put into it? A couple of bicycle paths? How many shelves does Little Goat book require? Does he still have his MBA textbooks to contribute?
Ah, contribute. Who, dear reader, is paying this $500 million (and probable cost overruns) ?
Haven’t presidential libraries become a bit tacky. I’d vote for the canidate who promises from day 1 – No Presidential Library; I’m leaving it all to the SPCA.
Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Jun 25 2008 5:04 utc | 7
I second Jake’s attitude mono. Happy to see you’re still here even if you’ve mostly joined the mainly lurkers like me but I would still appreciate hearing from you more often.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 25 2008 11:34 utc | 8
Will you quit with the fucking drama Monolycus, your one of the brightest commenter’s here and you know it. One among many, of course, but none the less valued.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 25 2008 11:43 utc | 9
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Any critique about my observations involving Lee Myung-bak, George Bush, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, South Korea or the subversion of democracy by elected officials in any nation?
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 25 2008 15:12 utc | 10
Typical. from the link in B’s post:
But the relationship has been complicated by Washington’s efforts to end the South Korean ban on US beef that was imposed after an outbreak of “mad cow disease” among American cattle in 2003.
Although S.K. is a semi-success from the US pov, it is just too shocking that US beef exporters could not cash in by selling prime steaks, macDos ground beef, or deadly bones, or whatever it is. Anyone objecting to rip offs or health risks etc. is obstructionist, suspect, not on the proper page, good for snubbing, pressuring, etc.
Meanwhile Americans know nothing about ‘mad cow disease’ and how many Americans it has killed. There is almost no info. available, it like reading tea leaves, or say in luke warm beef bouillion with scraps of onion and chives.
Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 25 2008 16:14 utc | 11
Not worthy to critique Monolycus [you know me], just keep writing, please.
Posted by: beq | Jun 25 2008 16:49 utc | 12
I guess it takes some getting used to, but the forum here seems to be a little less chatty than other boards. On one hand that is way cool because we don’t have the first 40 entries with frist or whatever crap you see at FDL and many more hundreds of entries with “word” or some such. on the other hand one never knows if people are shaking their heads in disgust or nodding in appreciation.
since many of us can not know what goes on in Korea and you are there Mono, I take what you write as the real deal. debs is dead writes many stories and rarely is challenged or rebutted. I pretty much accept what he writes as well because it is backed up with links and I have not found any falsehoods though many accuse him of being pretty harsh on whitefellas.
at any rate, I was pretty sure that it would take more than steaks from addled cows to bring tens or hundreds of thousands of people into the streets. Little boots has become poison for everyone he contacts. what a legacy!
speaking of people who haven’t been around for awhile, anybody heard from r’giap?
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 25 2008 17:40 utc | 13
Hey Monolycus – agree with the rest of the gang -I really appreciate your posts and read them avidly. I usually don’t know enough to comment intelligently on them. Today I glimpsed a headline saying the U.S. is about to take N. Korea off of the so-called terrorist nation list…know anything about that? Of course I’m delighted to hear it, but knowing this is the same bunch of bozos who called NoKo part of the axis of evil, I question the motives and and would like to know more about the backstory.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Jun 25 2008 17:46 utc | 14
@ dan of steele #13: “…one never knows if people are shaking their heads in disgust or nodding in appreciation.”
Very true. The lack of chattiness here can be both refreshing and oppressive. Unfortunately, I never assume anyone is nodding in appreciation.
@ Maxcrat #14: “…I glimpsed a headline saying the U.S. is about to take N. Korea off of the so-called terrorist nation list…know anything about that?”
First I’m hearing of it. My suspicion, and it is only that, is that NoKo was set up as a boogieman which the public never bought (a la Abu Mu’sab al-Zarqawi) and the law of diminishing returns has made it too expensive to keep up the pretext.
Kim Jong-il was supposed to have filled the role of “bin Laden of the Orient” and given the US justification to pursue a war into the theater of Iran (NoKo’s alleged partner in eeeeeeee-vil!) Problem is, even Washington D.C. has never granted NoKo the status of “nuclear nation” and after they screwed the pooch with the “yellowcake from Niger” story once already, it would take a monumentally expensive propaganda blitz to sell the idea that one of the poorest nations on Earth has either jack or shit to sell to the Iranians.
In short, if the headline you read is true (and I would like to see the link if you have it),the US just lost a war of fiscal attrition to a nation that is so poor that its citizens reportedly strip trees of their bark to fill their bellies in the wintertime.
Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 25 2008 18:33 utc | 15
@DoS – 13 – anybody heard from r’giap?
Unfortunately he is in hospital again. I don’t know details, but it could be serious…
@Monolycus – thanks for the info – maybe it would be better for the Koreans if Bush would visit. It would give them more reason to through out the bums.
I’ll be chatty.
Tangerine, you sound like a former Chicago or UC Berkley rising star that went bad.
Someone had very high hopes for you, and now you’ve gone over to the other side. tsk-tsk!
Posted by: Jake | Jun 25 2008 20:41 utc | 17
Mono – can’t find any link now on the “new improved North Korea”; I just caught a glimpse of that item first thing this morning when I was quickly scanning various news sites. Thanks for the commentary – it is simultaneously brilliant and hilarious.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Jun 25 2008 20:52 utc | 18
re: Presidential Library: Here is the fitting one
President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.
From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
Book pages will be allowed in after proving their usefulness for human hygiene.
Now I’m eating worms, b. I posted that (#19) yesterday on the midsummer thread.
🙁
Posted by: beq | Jun 26 2008 2:32 utc | 20
B, thanks so much for the SF Bush Sewage Treatment Plant link. We’re getting ready to build a new one here – I’ll get the naming onto the November Referendum.
This offers additional opportunities of course: For any large municiple treatment plant there are numerous pumping stations necessary to keep the sludge moving towards “the plant”. They have boring names like Sperling Ave Pumping Station or Jervis Street Pumping Station.
Think Rumsfeld sewage pump station, Cheney pump station, Rice pump station, Rove Sewage Pump House. Let us memorialize the dumbest and the worst in a fitting manner. Let the petitions begin – November is only months away.
Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Jun 26 2008 3:07 utc | 21