FRIDAY JUNE 19, 2009
Who wears the masks these days – villains or victims?
CHRIS WILLIAMS
Perhaps the
reason why
K orean interna-
tional endeavors
do not get full
recognition takes
us full circle in
this discussion.
T he international
media stereotype
of K orea is of
w ar,and like the
masks of other
international
victims,this hides
itstrue identity.
Divine intervention
in state economy
By Tim Rutten
Los Angeles Times Service
The late C. Wright Mills had a
certain segment of America’s
Cold War foreign policy estab-
lishment in mind when he
coined the description “crackpot
realism.”
He might just as well have
had in mind the outlooks of
those performing the seemingly
endless buffoonery masquerad-
ing as deliberations over the
California state budget. Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger insists
that the only way to close the
estimated $24-billion budget
gap is to throw children in need
of health insurance, the ill, the
elderly and tens of thousands of
the working poor — many of
them single mothers — to the
wolves of self-reliance. The
Democrats, naturally, resist,
but offer no workable alterna-
tive plan to close the deficit.
The Republicans stand apart,
like some secular Taliban, and
chant “no new taxes” — ever,
for any reason.
Last week, the state’s
Catholic bishops bravely walked
into this lion’s den of intransi-
gent “realism” and offered their
view of what’s actually at stake
in this tragedy that’s being
played as farce. It’s crucial, they
said, that lawmakers not only
“undertake major tax and bud-
get reforms” but also that they
“give top priority to programs
that provide for the basic needs
of children, the disabled and
those poor and unemployed who
cannot provide for themselves.”
These people, the bishops said,
need to be provided for “before
funding less urgently needed
services.”
Noting that the groups they
singled out already have been
the hardest hit by the state’s
worst budget crisis since the
Depression, the bishops wrote:
“We don’t presume to have all
the answers when it comes to
solving our state’s serious bud-
get problems. However ... as
they go about their delibera-
tions, we believe it is critical
that lawmakers are guided by
two fundamental principles.”
First, they said, budget cuts
should not start with the
“wholesale elimination” of pro-
grams that address the basic
survival needs of the poor and
vulnerable. And second, budget
and tax reform should be “ad-
dressed now, not later.”
“A permanent fix needs to be
enacted so that everyone who
relies on state government, es-
pecially the poor and vulnera-
ble, won’t be in a constant state
of upheaval, worried they will
be cut off from the basic necessi-
ties of food, shelter and medical
care,” the bishops wrote.
Now, if you’re the sort of per-
Face masks pervade press
pictures this week. Iranian pro-
testors hide their identity from
the security forces. Mexicans try
to stop the spread of swine flu.
Masks symbolize North Korean
workers at Gaeseong, and show
the plight of environmental vic-
tims in polluted Chinese cities.
These images are strangely
reminiscent of cowboy bandits in
American movies. But as we
watch Iranian protesters shout,
“the election has been stolen,” the
misunderstanding becomes clear.
We are now in an era when the
victims wear the masks, while
the villains use other disguises.
Misunderstanding seems in-
trinsic to mask wearing. When a
new virus appears, Westerners
rush to buy masks because they
see pictures from East Asia.
They do not realize that in East
Asia masks are not usually
worn to protect the wearer, but
as a courtesy to protect others. A
publisher once put a picture of
an East Asian child in a clinical
mask on a book of mine,
“Environmental victims.” Yet
medical masks cannot protect
the wearer against pollution.
Misunderstanding can be a
more serious international pan-
demic than a virus. We portray
Palestinians and Israelis as in a
mess of their own making, yet in
truth the mess was made by
Britain. The media tell us that
power in North Korea and Iran
is maintained by keeping citi-
zens in ignorance. Yet those
same commentators rarely un-
son who finds both those admo-
nitions a breath of genuinely
sane realism, you might also
ask yourself how and why it is
so often considered sentimental
or softheaded to point out that
there are moral dimensions,
and not merely fiscal considera-
tions, at play in these budget de-
liberations? It’s the implication
that the bishops and other reli-
gious leaders speak out of other-
worldly sentimentality that al-
lows most of the state’s English-
language news media and com-
mentators to routinely kick the
clerics’ statements on social jus-
tice issues into a well of silent
indifference.
In a telephone interview,
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the
Los Angeles archdiocese said he
was not bothered by the major
news outlets’ inattention.
“Historically, we’ve always been
concerned, as bishops,” he said,
“with government programs that
serve the poorest and the needi-
est — those who wouldn’t sur-
vive without them. ... As far as
the media goes, we get a much
more powerful hearing on radio
and television — much of it in
Spanish — and in newspapers
like La Opinion,” Los Angeles’
leading non-English daily.
That’s important, the cardinal
said, because the bishops’ state-
ment wasn’t aimed only at law-
makers.
“First of all, we want the poor
and needy to know that some-
body is speaking for them and
their dignity,” he said. “Second,
we want to urge our own Catholic
people to greater generosity to
those who require help.”
Still, Mahony points out that,
as operators of the state’s — and
the nation’s — most extensive
network of social service agen-
cies, California’s bishops are
painfully aware that public
funding is the linchpin of their
efforts. He argues that it makes
no sense to enact cuts, like
many of those Schwarzenegger
is proposing, that save
California 20 cents of its own
dollar while forfeiting 80 cents
of federal aid that the state’s
modest investment secures.
“Those kinds of cuts,” Mahony
argues, “should be the last and
the smallest we make.”
The bishops have done
California a service with this in-
tervention. It’s good to be remind-
ed that there’s nothing sentimen-
tal or unrealistic about being at-
tentive to the claims of conscience
and human solidarity — even
when what’s at issue is a matter
of dollars and cents. Given the so-
cial tenor of our collective lives
these days, that’s when it’s essen-
tial to be reminded.
Tim Rutten is a Los Angeles
Times columnist. — Ed.
derstand that both regimes stem
from external intervention, and
have often been fueled to suit
Western interests. America and
Britain created and maintained
the Iranian Shah’s regime, and
supported Iraq in the war
against Iran, for oil. Similarly,
the Cold War adversaries divid-
ed Korea for their own security
interests, not Korea’s.
Why is there not more in-
credulity when the Security
Council, G8 or “six nations”
claim they can sort out world
problems? A psychologist would
probably diagnose these doctors
of international ills as them-
selves having a serious condi-
tion, collective guilt. As the Bible
says, “Physician, heal thyself.”
And it is interesting that the
rest of this injunction from Luke
suggests a geopolitical not med-
ical meaning — “Whatsoever we
have heard done in Capernaum,
do also here in thy country.”
A trick of dubious politics,
East or West, is to conflate
knowledge and belief, to fuel
misunderstanding. Most out-
siders believe that all Iranians
are fundamentalist Muslims,
because that is the impression
America wants to create. But
this is not supported by the
knowledge that mosque atten-
dance in Iran is much lower
than in most Muslim countries.
You can’t judge a book by its cov-
er, and you can’t judge a mosque
by its mullah.
Belief is a mental condition.
Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Denial of mental illness affects everyone
By Susan Menadue-Chun
Tokyo, Japan
I am an Australian resident
of Japan. As a wife and mother
of five Korean citizens I have
great affection for Korea. I ad-
mire the sincerity and kindness
of Koreans and I always look
forward to my next trip to
Seoul.
Korea is the home of my fam-
ily’s honored ancestors. If it was
not for this special connection I
would beyond doubt never visit
Korea again. Regrettably on
my last trip to Seoul I was as-
Opening up new entertainment possibilities
By Scott Kirsner
Los Angeles Times Service
Talk to filmmakers and me-
dia executives about the inter-
net — the biggest tectonic shift
in the entertainment industry
since the advent of cable — and
they typically gripe about two
things. Consumers, they say,
predominantly seem to want to
watch short video clips, and the
economic models for earning a
decent return on internet con-
tent are still hazy.
About 15 years after
Americans started exploring
the web, there’s still anxiety
about the business potential of
digital entertainment and a re-
luctance to explore new creative
possibilities. NBC Universal
Chief Executive Jeff Zucker is
fond of expressing his fear that
the media conglomerate will
have to swap the “analog dol-
lars” it earns from broadcast
book, “Blink” lucidly explains
how, in its moderate form, belief
permits humans to hypothesize,
predict, and plan on the basis of
a subtle but instant balance of
intuition and evidence. The
health worker who claims “I be-
lieve that we must work harder
to prevent the spread of swine
flu” is likely to save lives, and at
worst will waste resources if the
belief is wrong. But politicians
who believe that they have a
right to tell their secret police to
shoot unarmed civilians in the
street, as in Iran this week,
have a more serious problem.
In an extreme form, belief be-
comes a mental health condition.
Our psychiatric hospitals care for
sad people with delusional be-
liefs that they are figures such as
Elvis Presley, Napoleon, Jesus or
Muhammad. They should also
be providing secure accommoda-
tion for delusional politicians
who think they speak for god.
After George Bush made his
fatal decisions about Iraq, the
Middle East and Afghanistan,
he said that he believed he was
doing god’s will, as seemingly
did Tony Blair. This is not a new
idea. The European despots,
English King Charles I, and
French Louise XIV wanted peo-
ple to believe that they were ap-
pointed by god and ruled by di-
vine right. But they had an ex-
cuse — that was 300 years ago.
How can modern leaders ex-
pect respect when they claim le-
gitimacy from a god who seem-
ingly needs truncheons, torture
saulted at a major pedestrian
crossing at midday. I was wait-
ing alone to cross at the traffic
lights when I heard a scream
and felt pain over the top of my
head. To my terrible dismay I
realized the scream was mine
and I had been beaten on the
head. I struggled to look around
to see a well dressed young
man equipped with a snazzy
iPod looking back at me with
strange eyes. He seemed to be
enjoying my pain and confu-
sion. I dared not say a thing in
fear he would hit me again.
While I regained my composure
television for “digital dimes.”
But like it or not, consumption
of video on the internet is grow-
ing much faster than movie tick-
et sales or TV viewing: As of
April, the average web surfer in
the United States was watching
more than six hours of online
video every month, according to
comScore, a tracking company.
Hollywood faced a similar cri-
sis in the 1950s, when a new
technology began showing up in
American living rooms offering
hours of content — for free —
every night. Television seemed
like a serious competitive threat
to most studio executives, who
were accustomed to re-releasing
their movies in theaters every
few years; they worried that
putting their pictures on TV
would gut that lucrative busi-
ness. Dore Schary, an MGM ex-
ecutive, complained that televi-
sion broadcasters “just can’t pay
enough” for the rights to show
and terror to ensure order in the
world he created? The Christian
Inquisition did this, but these
Spanish despots stopped 500
years ago. Thankfully, religious
or secular, belief-based politics
seems to backfire. When Thomas
Culpeper warned in 1649 that
“God gave tyrants in his wrath,
and will take them away in his
displeasure” this was not empty
rhetoric. In the same year, the
English revolutionaries detached
Charles I from his head, and lat-
er his revolutionary adversary,
Oliver Cromwell, suffered the
same fate.
Events in Iran appear de-
pressing, but perhaps, as in
17th century England, the revo-
lutionaries have sown the seeds
of their own destruction. Those
pictures of police riding motor
cycles at unarmed crowds, and
beating women wearing full
Islamic dress, will raise ques-
tions in the minds of people in
Iran and across the world, from
all political and religious beliefs.
This is what happened follow-
ing the Tiananmen Square
killings in 1989. The mask of to-
talitarianism seemed to remain,
but now it is to hide the pro-
gressive intentions of a new
wave of modern leaders from
their elders. The door has
opened, and international un-
derstanding was the key.
Last week I was looking
through dusty old copies of an
academic journal, “Education
Review,” which has been based at
Birmingham University for 60
and continued to hope it was
just a bad dream I heard more
screams. The assailant had
then moved on and hit two
more women over the head be-
fore making a hurried depar-
ture. We were too stunned to
move or say anything.
My daughter is a graduate
student at a prestigious Korean
University. She too has had two
similar assaults in the 18
months she has lived in Seoul.
Obviously the assailants suf-
fer from a mental disease. Are
the families of these aggressors
in denial regarding the illness
the studio’s product.
There were also, though, a
few pioneers who saw potential
in the new medium. In the ear-
ly days of television, such entre-
preneurs as Walt Disney be-
lieved that if consumers liked
the tube so much, there must be
a way of building a business
from it. Disney didn’t abandon
making high-priced movies.
But he also created content for
television that had lower pro-
duction costs than his movies,
and he used TV as a platform to
promote his theatrical releases
and his new theme park.
Others followed Disney’s lead,
and by the 1960s, Hollywood’s
studios were making more con-
tent for television than for the-
atrical release. The TV pro-
gramming relied on different
stars, lower production values
and a new business model
based on advertising and spon-
sorship.
OPINION 13
years. I found an article published
in 1954, called “Education for
International Understanding.”
This inspired the UNESCO
Recommendation with the same
name, in 1974, which is the basis
of the work of UNESCO’s “Asia-
Pacific Centre of Education for
International Understanding”
(APCEIU) in Seoul.
For many years, South Korea
has been quietly but effectively
been working for international
understanding, but with little
recognition, yet look at its links
with just one British city in one
month. Recently the vice chancel-
lor of Birmingham University,
David Eastwood, was at Korea
University to sign an agreement
for international cooperation, yet
many academics in Britain are
unaware that Korean universi-
ties work internationally.
This week, Rotary
International will hold its 100th
International Convention at
Birmingham. Its chair is a
Korean, Lee Dong-kurn, who has
led Rotary in a project to address
preventable diseases, called
“Make Dreams Real for the
World’s Children.” Lee follows
the path of another Korean in-
ternational leader who was
greatly admired but not widely
recognized as Korean, Lee Jong-
wook, director general of the
WHO, who died suddenly in
2006. The university will host
another international figure next
week who is certainly recognized
as an outstanding world leader,
but less often as a Korean — Ban
their loved ones suffer from and
leave them to roam the streets
of Seoul so they can attack any-
one they wish?
I hesitate to be judgmental;
however, if thugs can wander
around Seoul and randomly hit
innocent women, then I must
publicly affirm that Korea is be-
hind in the treatment of mental
illnesses.
I will continue to travel to
Seoul because my affinity for
Korea is more than skin deep.
Then again if I was a tourist
visiting Seoul for the first time,
I would never go again.
Many in Hollywood still de-
ride the wacky, user-generated
videos that occasionally turn
into viral hits on YouTube, the
top website for video viewing.
And it’s true that one of the
most-watched videos ever up-
loaded to the site is titled
“Charlie bit my finger — again!”
But a number of young cre-
ators — many of them working
outside of Hollywood’s orbit —
have been feverishly experi-
menting with new ways to tell
stories and generate revenue. An
office worker in Connecticut cre-
ated the catty entertainment
commentary show “What the
Buck” on YouTube, and suddenly
found he was making more from
the site’s “partner program,”
which offers creators a cut of ad
revenue, than he was at his desk
job, which he promptly quit.
Business models for content
on the internet are still evolving.
But it’s already becoming clear
Ki-moon, secretary-general of
the United Nations.
Perhaps the reason why
Korean international endeavors
do not get full recognition takes us
full circle in this discussion. The
international media stereotype of
Korea is of war, and like the
masks of other international vic-
tims, this hides its true identity.
This week, the mask became
the symbol of the victim, and
therefore the sign of a villain.
But it should also mark the start
of the revelation of the villains,
all of them. We might start by
exposing Western regimes who,
like those cowboy bandits, hav-
ing robbed countries of their se-
curity, then pretend it is nothing
to do with them.
Who then has the status to
“bring truth to power” in Iran
and North Korea? Certainly it
will not be the United States or
the United Kingdom, and prob-
ably not the Security Council. In
Iran, perhaps Korean negotia-
tors, not least Ban Ki-moon,
would have the moral authority
to facilitate change. But who
might have the legitimacy to
play this role in North Korea? If
“understanding” is the key, it
could be an Iranian.
Chris Williams is based at the
Center for International
Education and Research,
University of Birmingham,
United Kingdom. He can be
reached at chrisunula@
yahoo.com — Ed.
Inflated
promise
From Page 12
appears to be working.
As it turns out, digital tuners
aren’t all that they’re cracked
up to be. For instance, you
might not be able to get a signal.
According to experts, digital sig-
nals don’t travel as far or hold
up to interference as well as
analog.
So, after forking over $50 to
$80 for the converter box, you
might also need to buy an anten-
na, which could cost much more.
At least one-third of the callers to
the FCC’s help centers have com-
plained of reception problems.
I didn’t have serious reception
problems with my analog set.
Sure, there was the occasional
static snow. But it seemed to
soften news that was coming to
me directly from some crime
scene — which happened pretty
much every day. You don’t al-
ways want to see blood in the
street first thing in the morning.
Nor did I mind the blurry live
feeds from traffic cams. Who
needs to see flashing brake
lights along I-95 to know that
it’s rush hour anyway?
But, hey, what’s done is done.
Besides, fewer than 15 percent
of U.S viewers rely on free, over-
the air television. Or rather,
used to. There is no going back
just for them.
So the only question now is
what to do with my beloved
dead set. Convert it to a fish
tank, perhaps, or an ant farm. I
could dedicate it to another ana-
log favorite of the 1960s:
“Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom” with Marlin Perkins.
Second only to Captain
Kangaroo.
that $100-million movies like
“Land of the Lost,” or even $10-
million independent films, may
not represent the future of the
industry. And new technologies
like YouTube, the iPhone and
next-generation gaming consoles
are opening up all sorts of new,
creative possibilities. The artists
and business people who will
succeed in this new environment
are those who are paying atten-
tion to the changing behaviors
and tastes of this new digital au-
dience — rather than trying to
ignore them or, worse, explain-
ing why they are wrong.
Scott Kirsner edits the blog
CinemaTech and contributes
regularly to the trade newspa-
per Variety. His latest book is
“Fans, Friends & Followers:
Building an Audience and a
Creative Career in the Digital
Age.” — Ed.