It’s Election Day, and there are already lawsuits challenging votes and voting procedures. Some of them are invoking the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, which effectively handed that year’s presidential election to George W. Bush. We should expect a lot more to come. Bush v. Gore is widely misunderstood. It rested on exceedingly narrow grounds. As the court put it, the key issue was “whether the use of standardless manual recounts violates the Equal Protec

Defining the modern society as a risk society, risk management scholars insist one of the visible characteristics of the risk society is unidentified risk factors increasing while borders between countries disappear. The COVID-19 crisis is a disaster explicitly showing such features. Since the virus is invisible, it is difficult to contain it. Having started from somewhere, it has put the entire globe into a pandemic. It goes also the same to traditional disasters. The enormous amount of smo

After four years of President Donald Trump’s assault on the US constitution, it comes down to this. The courts have done what they could to limit the damage; the House of Representatives impeached him; and the Senate let him get away with it. Now all that remains is the final check provided by the constitution: a vote of the people. James Madison would have seen this coming. While the constitution was being ratified, he argued that its checks and balances would preserve the liberty that t

“Munyeodo,” which can be translated as “Portrait of a Shaman” or “The Shaman Painting,” is a short story by Kim Tong-ni that depicts the clash between traditional Korean shamanism and Western Christianity in premodern Korea. In the story, Kim superbly portrays the waning of traditional Korean culture in the face of the overwhelming influence of Western culture in early 20th century Korea. Kim’s story ends tragically, as the shaman mother kills her Christ

As Election Day nears, the possibility of a disputed presidential election is worrying a lot of people. You’ve heard the scenarios: An embittered Donald Trump loses but refuses to leave the Oval Office. An embittered Joe Biden loses but refuses to concede. Absentee ballots that arrive after Nov. 3 aren’t counted. Or they are counted. The angry left takes to the streets. The angry right takes to the streets. Lawyers take to the courts. Whatever goes wrong -- and chances are somethin

A second term for US President Donald Trump would complete the demolition of the post-war international economic system. Trump’s aggressive unilateralism, chaotic trade initiatives, loathing of multilateral cooperation, and disregard for the very idea of a global commons would overpower the resilience of the web of rules and institutions that underpin globalization. But would a victory for Joe Biden lead to a repair of the global system -- and, if so, of what kind? This is a much harder q

It’s easy to feel that there’s no light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. Europe’s intensive care wards are filling up again, pushing France and Germany into a fresh round of stay-at-home restrictions and lockdowns -- albeit ones designed to be softer than the first. Even countries hit hard by the first wave, such as Italy and Sweden, are seeing rising cases, suggesting herd immunity is a long way off. The US looks to have given up on controlling the pandemic until a vaccine

Japan’s bold pledge to cut net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 is very doable, but will require a degree of political will and coordinated, farsighted policymaking that the nation hasn’t enjoyed for some time. The government’s declaration comes as part of a wave of similar promises. In particular, China, Japan’s regional rival, recently pledged carbon neutrality by 2060. The European Union’s date is 2050, and presidential candidate Joe Biden has promised to commi

Embattled Evernote cripples free plan as concept of data synchronization gets outdated

Deaths of overworked delivery service workers -- 13 this year alone -- have exposed the reality of South Korea’s gig economy in this Year of the Pandemic. The delivery services that we enjoy, whether for food or any other product, are so amazingly convenient and fast that “flash delivery” and “bullet delivery” labels are common. The convenience surely takes a physical and emotional toll, but it is a cost that few of us stop to think about as we bring in our deli

President Donald Trump seems perpetually confused about who pays the tariffs of 10 percent to 25 percent that he’s imposed on imported goods. Either that, or he just won’t admit the truth: Trump’s tariffs are taxes on US purchasers, not foreign manufacturers. The issue came up again at the Oct. 22 presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, after moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News teed up a question for the two candidates about China policy. Welker started with former Vice

It’s only natural to be skeptical when a political leader stands up and makes a promise about a target that’s far off, hard to achieve, and lacks a clear pathway. So one reaction to a report that Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, will pledge next week to reduce the country’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 might be: Really? After all, public and private Japanese banks are still funding new coal-fired power stations in Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh, ex

So many of us these days cling to a particular political ideology to which we religiously subscribe. Then, almost as a matter of course, we build a faction of like-minded people and flock together, while excluding and discriminating against others. Once this occurs, it naturally follows that we begin to impose our ideology on others, forcing them to join our camp. Then, if they refuse, we wage war with them and lead witch hunts against them as if they are archenemies and heretics. Such is the sa

Like self-improvement books, the purpose of pension adequacy surveys is to make us feel lousy about ourselves.　 Lousy and scared: We haven’t saved enough because we’re myopic and lack self-control. We don’t have a retirement plan, and it’s getting late.　 And the nagging chases us right into our graves. At the back of our minds, there’s always the guilt that we should be leaving something -- actually, a lot -- to our children. So perhaps we shouldn’t bother h

As the pandemic wears on, month after month, it’s easy to assume nothing much has changed. But it has. We’re making more progress than many people may realize. Take Regeneron. President Donald Trump recently spoke of his efforts to usher this new therapeutic drug through the process for emergency use authorization and to make it available to the public, free of charge. This synthetic antibody medication was part of the president’s treatment plan when he was recently sickened w