They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but it is clearly too soon for the events of Jan. 6 to be presented as comedy.
The Plot Against America
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Park Chung Hee
Korean Reunification: The View from the North
An unusual poll reveals what North Koreans are thinking about reunification.
The Tao of North Korea
Forget those black-and-white satellite photos—North and South Korea are more alike than many suppose, and they’re slowly growing closer.
Korea’s Domestic Cold War
South Korea’s conservative government is rolling back free speech protections and going after progressive activists and political parties.
Empire, Capitalism, and Human Trafficking in Northeast Asia
The trafficking of North Korean women throughout Northeast Asia is a process whereby women are commoditized. They are sold to Chinese men as brides, or forced into prostitution to pay off debts accumulated while escaping North Korea. In many ways, North Korean women are inheritors of the suffering of Japan’s “comfort women.”
Time to End the Korean War
Thirty-eight years ago, just before Christmas, our lives as missionaries came to a sudden end when South Korea’s military dictator, Park Chung-hee, deported my husband, George Ogle, because he prayed in public for eight innocent men who had been falsely accused of having Communist ties, tortured to confess, and sentenced to death by secret military court.
Torture: An All-American Nightmare
Don’t for a second think that the essence of torture is physical pain, no matter what the new film Zero Dark Thirty implies. If, in many cases, the body heals, mental wounds are a far more difficult matter. Memory persists. After the fact, torture can only be dealt with by staring directly into the nightmare that changed us — that, like it or not, helped make us who we now are.
Christmas in Lebanon
A Lebanese Alawite family sits in their living room by a Christmas tree. The Alawite sect is a branch of Shi’a Islam found mostly in Syria. When asked about their Christmas tree, they replied “We obviously don’t believe in the same Christmas story, but its a fun holiday. Nice for the kids.”