Dokdo: To die for

An article from yesterday's Korea Times.

The nation's biggest portal, Daum Communications, Thursday said it had shut down five overly pro-Japanese online communities.

``After consultation with the Information Communication Ethics Committee (ICEC), we closed five communities, which claimed Japan's sovereignty over Tokto,'' a Daum spokesperson said.

She added Daum also found five more overridingly pro-Japanese communities and is mulling over whether to close them.

The state-backed ICEC said the online communities, which distort the history and thus doing mental harm to youth can be shut down under relevant laws.

Of course, "distort the history" means having any version of "the history" that does not match South Korea's version, or insists on pointing out facts that Koreans are trying very hard to pretend do not exist. God forbid Koreans ever read something other than the "correct" views of those properly nationalistic.

More state approved censorship: Ain't it great that Korea is run by a government that is truly progressive and democratic? We all have so much to learn from the progressives here. I just wish the US government would do more to protect Americans like me from the "mental harm" we suffer when we have to read "distorted" versions of events from non-Americans like Robert Fisk, Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky (I believe they are all Canadians and/or French). Our worthless Internet portals don't block shit.

To whom does dokdo belong? I'd say Korea, though neither side has much of a claim. This rock is uninhabitable for common folk and was thus largely ignored by both for centuries. But anyway, if it's land then someone's got to own it (we humans are an extremely territorial species) and I say Korea gets it by schoolyard rules: they raced out to the island and shouted "first."

And that's probably how just about how most people view it on both sides of the Sea of Japan/East Sea/Sea of I Am So Hate! (that's my proposal for what that body of water should be called). But the extremotards* from Japan had to make a big issue out of it and that got the extremotards in Korea all riled up and now we have this very silly argument raging increasingly out of control.

Burnin' for Tokdo, cause chopping off your fingers sometimes just isn't extreme enough. 쑈쑈쑈 하는 냄새가...

I have to admit that though the Japanese extremotards started this ruckus, the Korean extremotards are taking it to a whole new level of extremotardism.

So much hate, so little time...

Collection of signatures: Citizens participate in a signature campaign organized by a civic group to call for the enactment of a special law that aims at depriving pro-Japanese collaborators during the nation’s colonial period of their properties, in Taehangno, Seoul, Saturday. Yonhap

This is nice. Especially when you consider that anyone old enough to be a collaborater during colonial times would be over 80 years old at best. Throw great grandpa and grandma out in the streets! Take away the property from their children for having the audacity to be born in the wrong family!

More of that sweet smelling Korean-style progressivism and democracy...

* To my knowledge, I am the creator of this word (extremotard and all its grammatical derivatives) and thus hereby copyright it. Anyone wishing to use this word must pay me 100 Won (don't pay me in that increasingly worthless US money, I've got to eat you know) each time they use it.

Comments from original post


Just to show that I am also a cunning linguist, I've invented the word "exopooper" (like exoskeleton, but this time all the poop's on the outside). Please send 1,000,000 won for each usage to the Dynamite Dokdo Fund.

Posted by: Happy Tiger | March 21, 2005 at 03:15 AM

Sorry, honourable Pooper. Chomsky is 100% American and an MIT prof of lingustics.

Another attempt to blame Canada gone wrong.

Posted by: kimchipig | March 23, 2005 at 10:03 PM


Don't try to confuse us true Americans, Sir Kimchipig. Next you'll try to tell us that Michael Moore, Ralph Nader and people from Oregon are American as well.

And we aren't so sure about that French lookin' Kerry guy either...

Nice to see you still drop by the old neighborhood from time to time, by the way.

Posted by: pooper | March 24, 2005 at 01:48 AM

Cheque is in the mail. For the grand prize and all the candy in Egypt!

extremotardoxic (adj., of or relative to extremotardoxy)

extremotardiclism (n., earth-shatteringly stupid event)

extremotardopoly (n., dominating economic or institutional infrastructure that is SO DAMN EXTREMOTARDED that even the King Extremotard of Extremotardopolis is powerless to challenge it)

All is futile in the face of the coming Extremotardocalypse.

Ha. Ha hah hah. :)

Posted by: reed | March 28, 2005 at 09:20 AM