Krystal Ball turns on Genocide Joe:

Note that Krystal Ball can't bring herself to mention other options besides the (D) or the (R)...

Looks like a wet week coming up here...they're calling for 4-5" of rain by this time next week.

I'm hoping my little Geo tracker is repaired soon. It had a burnt valve. The valve wasn't hard to find, but valve seats were. Supposedly came in last Friday. I'll check with my mechanic this afternoon.

That's what you get driving a 30+ YO car.

Thanks for the OT!

Last night, I listened to the morning events live with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo; Defense Minister Shin Won-sik; Mira Rapp-Hooper, US Senior Director East Asia and Oceania, National Security Council; and Matt Pottinger, former Deputy National Security Advisor US.

Han Duk-soo's presentation was pretty bland stuff, very diplomatic compared to the others, nothing much to get excited about. He's pretty much the technician managerial type who plays his cards close to the vest. The Defense Minister Shin didn't say too much either. Did he even speak for five minutes? After he was done with the formalities, the content was almost nil except for the usual cold war, indo pacific buzz words. Minister of Defense Shin is a new right troglodyte who proposed and then began eliminating the 9.18 Comprehensive Military Agreement with North Korea. This frankly is something the US favored. Shin used to be a far right youtuber, and a general officer before that. In Rapp-Hooper's talk she blamed North Korea for doing away with 9.18 military agreement.

Mira Rapp-Hooper had a lot to say, pretty much diplo-gobbledygook about the trilateral partnership, US, Korea, Japan; how Yoon had brought the Korean people around to reconciling with Japan (yeah sure) which was wonderful, etc. Next I think it was she who suggested bringing South Korea into AUKUS and having military exchanges between South Korea and Taiwan. She's only 39 or so years old, the master of the universe you've (I've) never heard of, or at least the Indo-Pacific. But she went to Columbia so how could you go wrong? Understand she was an adviser to H. Clinton. I'd like to hear someone like Jeffrey Sachs comment on her. Of course, she has completely overlooked US and ROK missteps in bringing South Korea to the current tense situation with the North. It's all Pyongyang's fault. "We're open to dialogue but the north refuses," she said, but made no concrete suggestions.

I guess it was Pottinger who was the highlight of he presentation. Pottinger who was a journalist in China and then went on to burnish his blue blood credentials by volunteering for the USMC and doing a tour in Iraq and 2 tours in Afghanistan as an intel officer. He's no Scott Ritter that's for sure. He wrote a paper with LTG Michael Flynn as his aide, on how to "fix" intelligence in Afghanistan to aid decision makers. This was around 2010. How'd that work out? Pottinger worked for the Trump administration. He is the Asian affairs/ China expert. He's a blue blood with an inflated self image. His Asian handle is 博明 seems somewhat vain to me. Figuratively, he is clearly the "superman" type like Lawrence.

https://www.csis.org/events/joongang-csis-forum-2024-polycrisis-2024

These people are throwbacks to the earliest days of the cold war and are very dangerous. They're going to roll back the iron curtain as it were. Pottinger used a quote from Xi to the effect that Asia was for Asians, to make the ridiculous assertion (imo) that this was equivalent to the Japanese fascist vision of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, and the associated pan Asian rhetoric justifying Japanese imperial conquest during the first half of the 20th Century.

https://www.csis.org/events/joongang-csis-forum-2024-polycrisis-2024

Here's a CGTN update on the deaths of the two Chinese fisherman near Kinmen and the current diplomatic exchanges and political reactions on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. Definitely worth a look-

I like Jang Sa-ik's rendition of Spring Day is gone (orig. 1953). The musical theme of the rapprochement between North and South Korea in 2018 was Spring is Coming.

봄날은 간다 (1953) Springtime is gone

lyrics 손로원 melody 박시춘; original performer 백설회

As my pink skirt fluttered in the spring breeze
Today too, my dress tie snapping away while
Mountain sparrows fly across the shrine path
When the flowers bloom, we'd laugh together, if they withered,
together we'd cry,
In that tender promise, spring is gone.

Deep green leaves of grass, did float by in the flowing water
Today too, flower petals fall away,
Blue throated birds warble on horse cart road
When stars appeared, we'd laugh, when they set we'd cry
Those frivolous memories of spring gone by,

Age of nineteen, in the twilight, became sad,
Still, my breast, beats strongly
As a drifting cloud over a new road
Birds take flight, I follow smiling,
If the birds cry, I follow wailing
That evocative song, springtime is gone.

I'm really enjoying your musical selection EL, thanks!

in the Texas Bar Journal this month is about pipelines committing trespass. It is entitled "A Line in (and under) the Sand".
That phrase never gets old here in Texas.
Just about the time my clients are scheduled for appointments, a t-storm and likely hail will arrive. I figure the lights will go out, and computers go down, as the storm sets in.
Sigh...it's always something...
Thanks for the OT, EL. Happy reno day!

For some reason was thinking of the Chinese poet/Chan Buddhist Han Shan. Chan was the fore-
runner of Zen.

Found a translation of Cold Mountain online. I used to have Gary Synder's translation
but that was lost somewhere.

Translation by Burton Watson which I really like as he brings out the humor and
oblique mysticism of Han Shan. I am sure it is his birthday. Well, if not...

https://terebess.hu/zen/chang/ColdMountain.pdf

19
I'm not so poor at reports and decisions
Why can't I get ahead in the government?
The rating officials are determined to make life
hard.
All they do is try to expose my faults.
Everything, I guess, is a matter of Fate
Still, I'll try the exam again this year.
A blind boy aiming at the eye of a sparrow
Might just accidentally manage a hit.

23
In the house east of here lives an old woman.
Three or four years ago, she got rich.
In the old days she was poorer than I;
Now she laughs at me for not having a penny.
She laughs at me for being behind;
I laugh at her for getting ahead.
We laugh as though we'd never stop:
She from the east and I from the west!

45
Cold Mountain is full of weird sights;
People who try to climb it always get scared.
When the moon shines, the water glints and
sparkles;
When the wind blows, the grasses rustle and sigh.
Snowflakes make blossoms for the bare plum,
Clouds in place of leaves for the naked trees.
At a touch of rain, the whole mountain shimmers
But only in good weather can you make the climb.

la da da, la da da,

Hi all, hey EL!

Hope it's all goud over yonder, wherever your ynder may be.

Thanks for the Miriam Makeba. There was one of her records in the house in late 60's, when in early teens and of course I saw her on various television shows. Always thought she was great.

Have good ones all!