Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day

날씨가 좋아요 Nashiga choh-ayo, the weather is good.

Today was really the first gorgeous day of Spring here in Seoul. The temp. started in the upper forties and warmed to about 62 F, the sun shone brightly and there was just a hint of a breeze.

Of course, we knew it was Spring once baseball started on Saturday! Speaking of which, Andrew has added to the Opening Day narrative with further adventures of the gang once your humble narrator took the subway home in what increasingly looks like the nick of time: Doosan Rules!

The week's new lessons have begun, as they will do on Monday, but I'm not sure I want to talk about it yet. Well, okay. In the first grade, I stole the "Making Plans" lesson, lock, stock and barrell from BogglesworldESL. Why reinvent the wheel? I keep asking myself.

The second grade lesson plan, which mainly involved listening to love songs, was something of a disaster--note to self: as much as they hate it, each lesson must force the students to actually speak some English, not just write it down. Modifications as yet undetermined will be in force tomorrow. Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" may just have to go, in order to make room.

On the subject of "silly", the (North) Korean Central News Agency reported complete success in the launch of a satellite-payload missile this weekend, though virtually every international observer notes the rocket and its load fell into the Pacific Ocean about two thoussand miles from launch. The phantom satellite is now beaming patriotic songs from space directly into Kim Jung-il's phantom brain. If Bush lived in a bubble, this guy lives in a pig's bladder. Or something.

TB always tells me that states are "rational actors", which is a term of art in poli-sci circles, meaning that ruling groups or persons tailor their actions to perpetuate their ruler status. Dear Leader, as he must be called in DPRK, is distinctly not rational, and the regime can only be nourished by its cannibalistic propaganda for so long--soon, it will devour itself and the "3rd worst" dictatorship will crumble.

In one of the great ironies of the modern political stage, the South has a kind of perverse interest in the North's perpetuation, as the sudden influx of 30 million starving souls could well wreak havok on a small if comfortable market economy in a troubled global metier. It would be interesting to watch, were it not for the dead bodies piling up under Dear Leader's feet ...