The Korea Herald

[Margaret Carlson] Like dog days of summer, Palin is fading away

ViewpointsSept 8, 2011

Sarah Palin is learning that attention is a depreciating asset. Her latest melodrama revolved around whether she would show up at a Tea Party event in Iowa on Saturday. In the end, she did. Yet that only begged a question: Does anyone, including Republican primary voters, still care? In 2009, Palin
[Linda P. Campbell] Texas mother’s hard-luck lessons through Allentown

ViewpointsSept 8, 2011

Driving couldn’t possibly be worse than heading toward Allentown on an unfamiliar, dark highway, with walls of rain splashing away decent visibility and tractor-trailers barreling by with no regard for the treacherous road conditions.It was Thursday last week, and you’d have thought Hurricane Irene
[Shlomo Ben Ami] WMD-free zone in Middle East

ViewpointsSept 8, 2011

MADRID ― Twenty-five years ago, at a summit in Rejkjavik, Iceland, U.S. President Ronald Reagan stunned the world and his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, by proposing global and comprehensive elimination of all nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the skepticism of the United States’ defense estab
[Editorial] Party politics in crisis

EditorialSept 7, 2011

The default political system throughout the world is representative democracy ― a form of government in which people are represented by those they have elected to the legislature. It applies not just to the parliamentary system of government but to the presidential system.With representatives select
[Editorial] Where’s the market?

EditorialSept 7, 2011

One of the first things students learn in an economics class is that, in a competitive market, the price of a good is determined by the supply of and demand for it. There is no room for intervention by the government except in case of a market failure.But the Korean government intervenes in the mark
Sarkozy’s pro-NATO policy more than symbolism

ViewpointsSept 7, 2011

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ushered in a new era of cooperation with a foreign policy that brings the country closer to the U.S. than it has been in decades. Vive la France. The fall of Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal dictatorship in Libya wouldn’t have been possible without Sarkozy’s leadership.
[Joseph E. Stiglitz] The price of 9/11 terror attacks

ViewpointsSept 7, 2011

NEW YORK ― The September 11, 2001, terror attacks by al-Qaida were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush’s response to the attacks compromised America’s basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened
[Iain McCalman] Australia’s refugee uproar ignores founding story

ViewpointsSept 7, 2011

They came great distances across dangerous seas in overcrowded ships to land at various points on the coast. More than 800 boats made it during an 80-year period, each carrying fragile human cargoes. Lack of sanitation, poor food and disease were commonplace, sexual and other forms of violence were
[William Pesek] A $31 billion loss creates the biggest tea party

ViewpointsSept 7, 2011

Few people in their right mind would find any good in a $31 billion loss. In India’s case, it may just be the best thing that has happened in a very long time. Let’s flash forward 20 years to what school kids will learn about recent events. Sure, they may hear about Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption
[Naomi Wolf] Charles Dickens and David Cameron’s great expectations

ViewpointsSept 7, 2011

NEW YORK ― As I listened to the news coming out of England after the recent wave of urban riots ― and as I read Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s compelling new biography of Charles Dickens, “Becoming Dickens” ― life and art seemed to be echoing each other.In the wake of the riots, British Prime Minister D
[Editorial] MBC’s overdue apology

EditorialSept 6, 2011

MBC said it painfully accepts responsibility upon the Supreme Court’s judgment of falsity in its investigative report aired on April 27, 2008 concerning a bilateral accord for imports of U.S. beef. The broadcaster should have made a public apology for its inaccurate reporting on mad cow disease in t
[Editorial] Celebrity tax evasion

EditorialSept 6, 2011

Many top entertainers and sports stars make large donations to charity. It is often reported that their acts of sharing are related to their extremely difficult lives before they reached stardom. Even if some of them insist on not making their donations public, their charitable deeds become known to
[Dick Polman] Cantor, GOP playing Scrooge with disaster relief

ViewpointsSept 6, 2011

The ethos of Ebenezer Scrooge is now infecting federal disaster relief.It was inevitable that this bipartisan practice ― helping storm-tossed Americans, regardless of the cost ― would become politicized. After all, if ``tea party’’ Republicans would hold the debt ceiling hostage, in exchange for a h
[Lee Jae-min] After all, packaging matters

ViewpointsSept 6, 2011

The color blue is an appetite suppressant, so if you wish to reduce weight you may want to put a bluish picture of your favorite food right beside the dining table or even dye your food blue, if you can. So went an interesting TV news program a couple of days ago. Blue is associated with the bitter
[Stephen L. Carter] Both parties misunderstand taxes, sacrifice

ViewpointsSept 6, 2011

Taxes are in bad political odor these days. True, there has been no era in which taxation was popular, but we seem to have reached a moment of particular confusion. We have one major party dedicated to the bizarre principle that nothing that is not taxed now should ever be taxed again, and another d