Hello and Im back now to doing this blog alot more now that the computer is back and in operation, still can't get Itunes to load up but if thats the biggest problem then all is well.

Well the weekend was a nice one. Friday I went to a party that my other american teacher threw and it was nice, hot dogs, hamburgers, jello shots and beer. The party ended early when the land lord complained about our noise. We broke up and went to another frinds house where I finally went home at 330 am.

Saturday was ok, Finally saw "Sympathy for Mr. Vengence" on the big screen and it was great. Went to Osan and got a few dvds and came home.

Sunday went to Seoul and hung out with a friend of mine, we had a nice quiet time.


looks like a all you can drink party for 20,000w on Friday, my drinking has sure increased since I have been back in Korea, I need to slow down on that and very soon.

Need to cal home this weekend, I havent done it in a while.

ok well the computer is back up and running, it took a whole new motherbord and I upgraded a hard drive and added better usb ports. Im staying home on Friday, just going to take it a little easy. Saturday and Sunday both look busy so Ill take Friday as a break.

Ok still my computer is fried at home and I'm sick so nothing to report, just wanted a quick update.

I will post more about the week but I saw this and I just had to publish it.

Cindy Sheehan is the California mother camped outside President Bush's ranch in Texas to protest the death of a son who was killed while serving with U.S. forces in Iraq. I have been folowing this and sad to say I am, as a vet, saddened by her protest. I understand why, tp burry your own child is the sum of all fears for a parent. It worried mine when I was in the US Army. I could go on but she keeps asking the same question.

Why did my son have to die.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/08/message-to-cindy-sheehan.html

It states it better than I can. I hope you read the story and I hope you understand.

A message to Cindy Sheehan
I realize how tragic your loss is and I know how much pain there is crushing your heart and I know the darkness that suddenly came to wrap your life and wipe away your dreams and I do feel the heat of your tears that won't dry until you find the answers to your question; why you lost your loved one?

I have heard your story and I understand that you have the full right to ask people to stand by your side and support your cause. At the beginning I told myself, this is yet another woman who lost a piece of her heart and the questions of war, peace and why are killing her everyday. To be frank to you the first thing I thought of was like "why should I listen or care to answer when there are thousands of other women in America, Iraq and Afghanistan who lost a son or a husband or a brother…”

But today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?

I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.

Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.

Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.

We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.

We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.

The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.

I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.

Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".

Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?

We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.

You are free to go and leave us alone but what am I going to tell your million sisters in Iraq? Should I ask them to leave Iraq too? Should I leave too? And what about the eight millions who walked through bombs to practice their freedom and vote? Should they leave this land too?
Is it a cursed land that no one should live in? Why is it that we were chosen to live in all this pain, why me, why my people, why you?

But I am not leaving this land because the bad guys are not going to leave us or you to live in peace. They are the same ones who flew the planes to kill your people in New York.
I ask you in the name of God or whatever you believe in; do not waste your son's blood.
We here have decided to avenge humanity, you and all the women who lost their loved ones.
Take a look at our enemy Cindy, look closely at the hooded man holding the sword and if you think he's right then I will back off and support your call.

We live in pain and grief everyday, every hour, every minute; all the horrors of the powers of darkness have been directed at us and I don't know exactly when am I going to feel safe again, maybe in a year, maybe two or even ten; I frankly don't know but I don't want to lose hope and faith.

We are in need for every hand that can offer some help. Please pray for us, I know that God listens to mothers' prayers and I call all the women on earth to pray with you for peace in this world. Your son sacrificed his life for a very noble cause…No, he sacrificed himself for the most precious value in this existence; that is freedom.

His blood didn't go in vain; your son and our brethren are drawing a great example of selflessness.
God bless his free soul and God bless the souls of his comrades who are fighting evil.
God bless the souls of Iraqis who suffered and died for the sake of freedom.
God bless all the freedom lovers on earth.

- posted by Mohammed @ 23:24







I hope this answers any more questions on why I support President Bush and why I am so upset when those who condem me for this, have not a clue where I am comming from. May God bless the woman who wrote this. Well written my friend.

Today has been a very quiet day today, im doing my report today from a pc room here in Korea due to the fact that my pc at home has a connection issue.


Todays news

Janet Jackson incident has happened in Korea. 2 member drop their pants.

Musicians accused of indecent exposure on a television music program admitted Thursday that they knew the program was airing live and that the dropping of their pants during the show was planned, going back on their initial statement. A police official from Seoul Yongdungpo Police Station said in a briefing that the two male musicians of the local punk band Couch, aged 20 and 27, admitted to most of the charges.

In their testimony, they said they knew the MBC show ``Music Camp’’ was a live telecast and their plan to expose their private parts on television was done ``for fun.’’ However, they also said it was not meant to be a protest against the broadcaster, the official added. The incident took place last Saturday during the performance of the punk band RUX, who invited the two musicians to dance on stage with them. Their genitalia were shown on TV for about four seconds.

The musicians told the police they met with Won Chong-hee, lead vocalist of RUX, a day before the airing of the show and made their plans. Prior to yesterday, the musicians had insisted that their decision was spontaneous and that they were not aware that the show was a live telecast. The police also found that the two members of Couch previously dropped their pants during their own club performances in July and August. The police will formally charge the two musicians of Couch for putting on an obscene performance and for obstructing the work of a television network. Won, who did not drop his pants, will also be charged for the obstruction.


Looks like these 2 people from the band, "Couch" have seen the film "The Full Monty".



"Show me the Money"

Looks like my favorite psycho Uncle, is at it again. Still my freinds wonder why I voted for Bush.

The latest from the 6 Country Talks..

North Korea Tries to Hold US in Check

SEOUL, BEIJING _ A late-night press conference held by Kim Kye-gwan, chief Pyongyang delegate to the six-party nuclear talks, was designed to hold his U.S. counterpart in check, a North Korea expert in Seoul said on Friday.
``Kim wanted to counter the strong voice of Christopher Hill,'' Paik Hak-soon, director of the Sejong Institute's North Korean Studies, told The Korea Times. ``He might have felt the need to let the press know the story from the viewpoint of the North.'' In a brief meeting with the press in front of the North Korean Embassy in Beijing at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Kim bluntly told around 100 reporters that ``only one country'' is opposing Pyongyang's right to have nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.

``We favor the denuclearization (of the Korean Peninsula), but we also want to have the right to peaceful nuclear activities,'' he said. ``As you know, only one country is opposing that.'' Paik said North Korea, which has long had an image as a ``madman'' in the international community, might also have felt the need to underline its ``fair complaint'' through the counter-explanation that the U.S. is rejecting its ``justifiable'' demands. ``Does it make sense if our country, not a war loser nor a criminal country, should be denied peaceful nuclear activities?'' Kim said at the press meeting.

Regarding the six-party process, Hill tells reporters the U.S. position on a daily basis. But Kim rarely speaks to the press even though a throng of reporters always wait in front of the North's mission in the Chinese capital. Another North Korea expert in Seoul, who declined to be named, said that he thinks Pyongyang is dragging its feet to make the U.S. abandon the talks first. `North Korea is not in a position where it can be the first one to drop the ball because its godfather, China, is hosting these talks,'' he said. ``So, Kim is trying to drive Hill nuts. But such a tactic will not likely work because Hill is a veteran negotiator.''

Early in the morning on Friday, Hill once again told reporters that he is determined to see the end of the talks, which resumed after a 13-month hiatus and stretched into their 12th day on Saturday. `I didn't come here for 12 days to walk away from this thing lightly,'' Hill said. ``We would really like to see if we can have an agreement. But it's got to be an agreement that's consistent with our interests.'' Very fortunate is the fact that North Korea also wants to find a solution in the fourth round of the six-party talks because its delegates are still staying in Beijing. In the past, the Pyongyang delegation used to go home after an abrupt press meeting.

I just love it, Bush has told the Crazy Uncle from the North, you lied to us last time and this time unless you first de-nuclear and other things no cash.
The North wants to leave , but Godfather, China, is hosting the metings and can not walk away first.

The final cut

For those who know me, it is not uncommon to see me wearing a NY Yankees cap or a Yankees shirt. To me baseball is the best sport in the world and I am A huge Yankees fan. In the last 10 years I have seen alot of so called heroes who now look like they are using drugs to make themselves look bigger. With olot of doubt can we even trust baseball to clean up its own act. Myself, I fear that it will take Congress to lay down the law. Now we see a Future Hall of Famer in Rafael Palmeiro given a "Joke" 10 day suspension for, if the report is right, "Palmeiro tested positive for the powerful steroid stanozolol. That's what sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for when he was stripped of his gold medal and world record in the 100 meters at the 1988 Olympics. It is not available in over-the-counter supplements and is known as a powerful strength-builder. It can be ingested in tablet form, leaving one's system in less than a month, or injected, lasting several weeks longer." By HOWARD FENDRICH, AP Sports Writer.

It is sad that I feel that I am watching the beginning of the death of the great game that I love.

Then I read online Ryne Sandberg's Hall of Fame speech and I feel that maybe baseball has a chance. It brought back a lot of memories of me playing baseball as a kid. Here is his full speech. Hopefully those in power listen and try and save the game I have grown to love.

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – What a beautiful day this is. I stand here today before you humbled and a grateful baseball player. I am truly honored and in awe, honored to be in the class with my fellow inductee Wade Boggs. And as I look behind me here, wow, at the greatest players in the history of the game, I am in awe. I know that if I had ever allowed myself to think this was possible, if I had ever taken one day in pro ball for granted, I'm sure I would not be here today. This will come as a shock I know, but I am almost speechless.

The reason I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way, that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played. I don't know about that, but I do know this: I had too much respect for the game to play it any other way, and if there was there was a single reason I am here today, it is because of one word – respect. I love to play baseball. I'm a baseball player. I've always been a baseball player. I'm still a baseball player. That's who I am.

I was a baseball player when I was 10 or 12 years old pretending to be Willie Stargell or Johnny Bench or Luis Tiant, when my bat was an old fungo, my ball was a plastic golf ball, when the field was the street and my older brother Del and I would play all day. I was a baseball player at North Central High School in Spokane, Wash., even though I was all-city in basketball, even when I signed a letter-of-intent to play quarterback with Washington State. That's why Del advised me to turn down the chance to play football and sign with the Phillies out of high school. I had too much respect for the game to leave it behind or to make it my second or third sport in college.

Everything I am today, everything I have today, everything I will ever be is because of the game of baseball, not the game you see on TV or in movies – baseball, the one we all know, the one we played with whiffle ball bats pretending to be Yaz or Fisk or Rose, in dirt fields and in alleys. We all know that game. The game fit me because it was right.

It was all about doing things right. If you played the game the right way, played the game for the team, good things would happen. That's what I loved most about the game, how a ground out to second with a man on second and nobody out was a great thing. Respect.

I was taught coming up in the Phillies organization to be seen and not heard by people like Pete Rose, my hero growing up, and players like Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and Manny Trillo. I understood that.

My parents, Derwent and Elizabeth, who are no longer with us, understood that. My mom was at every single game I played as a kid, rain or shine. My dad always said, "Keep your nose clean, your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open because you might learn something." My sister Maryl and my late brother Lane knew this too, so did my first professional manager, Larry Rojas, a guy who was always in my corner as I climbed through the Phillies organization, guys like Bill Harper, the scout that signed me, Ken Eilmes, my high school coach, P.J. Carey, a Phillies coach, they taught me to respect the game above all else.

The fourth major league game I ever saw in person, I was in uniform. Yes, I was in awe. I was in awe every time I walked on to the field. That's respect. I was taught you never, ever disrespect your opponent or your teammates or your organization or your manager and never ever your uniform. Make a great play? Act like you've done it before. Get a big hit? Look for the third base coach and get ready to run the bases. Hit a home run? Put your head down, drop the bat, run around the bases. Because the name on the front is a lot more important than the name on the back. That's respect.

My managers like Don Zimmer and Jim Frey, they always said I made things easy on them by showing up on time, never getting into trouble, being ready to play every day, leading by example, being unselfish. I made things easy on them? These things they talk about, playing every day, that was my job. I had too much respect for them and for the game to let them down. I was afraid to let them down. I didn't want to let them down or let the fans down or my teammates or my family or myself. I had too much respect for them to let them down.

Dallas Green brought me to Chicago and without him, who knows? I couldn't let him down. I owed him too much. I had too much respect for him to let him down. People like Harry Caray and Don Zimmer used to compare me to Jackie Robinson. Can you think of a better tribute than that? But Harry, who was a huge supporter of mine, used to say how nice it is that a guy who can hit 40 homers, steal 50 bases and drive in a hundred runs is the best bunter on the team. Nice? That was my job. When did it become OK for someone to hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game?

When we went home every winter, they warned us not to lift heavy weights because they didn't want us to lose flexibility. They wanted us to be baseball players, not only home run hitters. I played high school football at 185 pounds and played big league baseball at 182. I'd get up to maybe 188 in the offseason because every summer I'd lose eight to 10 pounds. In my day, if a guy came to spring training 20 pounds heavier than what he left, he was considered out of shape and was probably in trouble. He'd be under a microscope and the first time he couldn't beat out a base hit or missed a fly ball, he was probably shipped out. These guys sitting up here did not pave the way for the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and forget how to move a runner over to third. It's disrespectful to them, to you and to the game of baseball that we all played growing up. Respect.

A lot of people say this honor validates my career, but I didn't work hard for validation. I didn't play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do – play it right and with respect. If this validates anything, it's that learning how to bunt and hit and run and turning two is more important than knowing where to find the little red light on the dugout camera.

If this validates anything, it's that guys who taught me the game, coaches like Billy Williams, Chuck Cottier, John Vukovich, Jose Martinez, Billy Connors and Ruben Amaro; teammates like Larry Bowa who took me under his wing, Rick Sutcliffe who was like an older brother, Bob Dernier, the half of the daily double. They did what they were supposed to do and I did what I was supposed to do.

There was Gary Matthews, the Sarge. He wouldn't let me down. He was always in the on-deck circle when I was batting and if there was a pitch that almost hit me or knocked me down, Sarge would be halfway to the mound coming at the pitcher, "Get the ball over the plate or face the consequences." I saw a lot of fast balls down the middle because of Sarge and I had too much respect for how hard he played to give it any less than he did.

Sure, I worked hard to get the most out of my God-given ability, but that's what we all did back then. That's what every one of these guys sitting here did. There were a lot of players who worked just as hard as I did and if you didn't, you didn't stay in the big leagues.

There were guys like Bill Buckner, an incredible big league hitter, the first pure hitter I spent time with in the big leagues. I saw him come through town with the Spokane Indians in Triple A with Tommy Lasorda and a whole team full of guys who went to the World Series. They all worked hard.

There was Shawon Dunston and Mark Grace, and together we were a double play combination for 10 years. Shawon Dunston, who knew three weeks in advance if we were facing Nolan Ryan and always had a hamstring pull playing the day before. Mark Grace, who made sure Shawon knew he was supposed to get every popup from foul line to foul line on the infield. We could read each other's minds on the field and off. They worked hard. How could I let them down? By not being prepared for everything that might happen in the field, at the plate or on the bases?

Respect.

Andre Dawson, the Hawk. No player in baseball history worked harder, suffered more or did it better than Andre Dawson. He's the best I've ever seen. I watched him win MVP for a last-place team in 1987 and it was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in baseball. He did it the right way, the natural way and he did it in the field and on the bases and in every way, and I hope he will stand up here someday. We didn't get to a World Series together but we almost got there, Hawk. That's my regret, that we didn't get to a World Series for Cub fans. I was in the postseason twice and I'm thankful for that. Twice we came close.

It reminds me of the guy walking down the beach. He finds a bottle, pops the cork and a genie comes out to grant him one wish. The guy says my wish is for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Here's a map of the Middle East. The genie takes the map, studies it for hours and hours. Finally gives it back to the guy and says, "Is there anything else you want to wish for? This is impossible." The guy says, "Well, I always wanted to see the Cubs in a World Series." The genie looks at him, reaches out and says, "Let me have another look at that map."

In baseball, there's always the next day. I always thought there would be another chance. It didn't happen, but I feel fortunate for the two chances we had and it's just a shame we didn't go to a World Series for Cub fans. You can't do it on your own.

And I want to say thank you to every teammate, coach, manager and, just as important, my opponents who made the game fun for me. I want to say thank you to friends like Doug Dascenzo, Yosh Kawano, Arlene Gill, Jimmy Farrell, John Fierro, my Cubs trainer for 10 years, and Marty Hare, an old high school teammate. To Jimmy Turner, Kathy Lintz and Peter Bensinger, advisors, confidants and close friends, thank you. Also, Barry Rosner, a great writer and good friend. It's fun talking baseball with you, Barry. Thank you.

To the Baseball Writers Association, I thank you for granting me this incredible honor. I think a large part of this is the fact that I was a great interview and gave you so many quotes you could wrap a story around. Seriously, I know I wasn't the best interview for many of those years, but I wasn't trying to be difficult. I had other things on my mind. Baseball wasn't easy for me. I struggled many times when maybe it didn't look like I was struggling and I had to work hard every day. I had to prepare mentally every day. I had to prepare physically every day and I didn't leave many scraps for the writers.

I hope you also understand why I would not campaign for this or help you sell this. It's the best award in all of sports and I think if I had expected anything, if I was thinking about it too much or crunching the numbers, it would have taken away from the prestige of this incredible honor.

To the great folks here at the Hall of Fame, Jane Forbes Clark, Dale Petrosky, Jeff Idelson, Kim Bennett, Brad Horn, Ted Spencer and Evan Chase, thanks for making this entire year a joy for me and my family, one we will certainly never forget.

I've been lucky enough to be welcomed into three new families since I arrived in Chicago. As great a public speaker as I am, I don't have the words to describe Cub fans who welcomed me as a rookie, were patient through my 1-for-32 start and took me into their homes and into their hearts and treated me like a member of their family. You picked me up when I was down. You lifted me to heights that I didn't know I could reach. You expected a certain level of play for from me and you made me play at that level for a long time.

I know there are a lot of Cub fans here today. I feel like every Cub fan in the world is here with me today. And by the way, for what it's worth, Ron Santo just gained one more vote from the veteran's committee.

Thank you to these men here, these Hall of Famers, the greatest players in the history of baseball who have welcomed me in and treated me as an equal. It's going to take some getting used to, but I thank you for your kindness and respect. This is the second best thing that's ever happened to me.

Lastly, I joined a new family when my wife Margaret, BR, Adriane and Steven took me, Lindsey and Justin into their family and together we have made quite a happy family. I love all of you.

You are probably wondering what was first, when I said this honor is the second best thing that's ever happened to me. My wife Margaret is the best thing that's ever happened to me. She is my best friend, she is the love of my life. She is my salvation. She's my past, my present, my future. She is my sun, my moon, my stars. She is everything that's good about life and I thank her for entering my life at a time when I needed her most. I love you.

The feeling I've had since I got the call is a feeling I suspect will never go away. I'm told it never does. It's the highest high you can imagine. I wish you all could feel what I feel standing here. This is my last big game. This is my last big at-bat. This is my last time catching the final out. I dreamed of this as a child but I had too much respect for baseball to think this was ever possible. I believe it is because I had so much respect for the game and respect for getting the most out of my ability that I stand here today. I hope others in the future will know this feeling for the same reason – respect for the game of baseball. When we all played it, it was mandatory. It's something I hope we will one day see again.

Thank you, and go Cubs.

Longtime Chicago Cub Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 31, 2005.

The final cut

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.


A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens


It was one of those weeks where it was the best of times, it was the worse of times.

First the good times.

Thursday was a fun day. I had to go to Osaka Japan to get my Visa so i can work here in Korea for another year. I left very early from Daejeon, 0420 hrs, and it was a nice bus ride to Incheon Airport. It was easy to get through since I only brought 1 bag, a small carry on with papers. The duty free shopping was very nice and had a nice meal.

Then I met an person from Canada, he was going to Osaka also, then we met a lady from USA, then a person from Canada and another one from Canada, so we had 5 people all to start with. I was so glad that I wasn't going their by myself. I later met 2 other people on the plane so by the time the flight ended we had 7 people all going to the same location. What was funny was that the last 2 were Americans who are both of Arab ancestors, They both told me that it was funny because they were the ones next to the escape hatch on the plane, They told me that the Stewartness asked them both not to touch the hatch at all. They both laughed because in American their is no way that they would even be allowed near the hatch. They took it with humor and we all had a good laugh from it.

What was weird was the smell, or a lack of a smell, in Osaka. I just got so used to the smell here in Korea. I was really surprised by the clean streets.

We took the subway on the way to the South Korea Consulate. If you have to go please take the Express Train, it cost alot more but its well worth it. Another thing we all discovered was the price for a lot of things are definately higher in Japan. The papers, the food. It was worth it.

We made it to the consulate, and it was ok, we had an hour wait so we found a nice little dinner, its called the tomatoo. The food was great and it wasnt that expensive. We all made it back and got our new visas. We took the express train back to Osaka and it was great, very roomy and comfortable. I am 6'4 (1.93 Meters) so finding comfortable seats here has been hard. That why I liked the express train.

I counldn't find Cubans their in the airport and I almost missed the flight back but it was fun.

Now for the worse of times.

Their are many things in my life that I have come to accept, That I am an American, A Texan, A member of the GOP. So because of these things people will hate me and they don't even know me. That is the real sadness for them. Sad to say, I ran into that late Friday night/ early Saturday morning.

I went to the Wa-Bar like I sometimes do in Suji, It a nice bar that I went to when I lived in Yong-In city. I met my friends and after awhile we went outside to sit and talk. One person was from Australia and I asked him to please explain "The Wiggles" to me. (they are a kids show from aussie land that is very popular with the kids) he said that they were famous and we laughed about it. Then later it all went bad.


To be honest here, I really dont know the kid or that much about him. All I recall about him was that he was wearing a England Football shirt, so I thought that he was from the UK (Found out later he is from Canada.) This guy starts talking about how much he hates America. (now normally IM ok with that what the kid didnt realize was that I'm ex US Army and the other American their is active US Army.) This kid just keep saying stupid stuff and what made me lose it is when he said this.

The American's who died on Sept.11 DESERVED TO DIE.

That's when I lost it! Sad to say I think that I have lost an associate on that day, he died in the Pentagon, I knew him he knew me. Now with the War in Iraq and maybe soon Iran and North Korea. I fear that I will lose too many people that I care about. I darn near wanted to hit the kid but I didnt. My cooler head prevailed. To his credit he did buy me and the other American a drink, neither of us drank it. To be honest it made me very upset but nothing will happen, if he doesnt bother me, I wont bother him. What was sad about this while thing someone that I like saw this whole thing and now I think that I've blown any shot that I might have had with her.

She has a blog also and I read hers, shes from Canada and I think shes very smart and beautiful, my Army friend said that I should ask her out so I have, via email, now because of the incident Don't know if she'll want to talk to me again.


Like I said earlier, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The Man. 7 Tours in a row. 

The final cut

LANCE WINS #7.

PARIS (AP) -- Lance Armstrong will never ride in the Tour de France again. After seven years of dominance, he is trading in rough rides through the mountains for leisurely days on the beach. Having stepped onto the podium for the last time on Sunday to celebrate his seventh straight Tour victory, Armstrong will spend a few days ``with a beer, having a blast.''

It's time for him to play with his kids, chill out with rocker girlfriend Sheryl Crow, and toast his success as the undisputed champion of cycling's most demanding event. ``I'm finished,'' Armstrong said. He is moving far away from the awe-struck crowds that crossed countries for the merest glimpse, the six-hour training rides in pouring rain that gave him the edge over others, the stress of worrying whether his rivals could ever catch up. Armstrong is now retired at the ripe old age of 33.``We're just going to hang out in the south of France for a little while and do nothing,'' Crow said.

He also delivered a final shot at ``the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics'' who suspect that doping is rife in the grueling sport and fueled his dominance.`I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is a hell of a race,'' he said. ``You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets -- this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it.''


Enjoy retirement. You have earned it.

The final cut

The last few messages that I have left have not made much scenes. I will try and explain why now.

Last year on 23 July 2004, I lost the biggest influence in my life, my father, Flynn Benard McStay Jr. He died of cancer, the V.A. believes that it was caused by his exposure to agent orange on the DMZ in 66-67. I am at home tonight just trying to survive this day.

The 3 songs I selected. Dance With My Father, Leader of The Band, Tears in Heaven. They all tell things that I wish that I could say to him tonight.

I wish that I could have him swing me around and tell me that everything is going to be all right. I miss our watching boxing together. My grandfather taught me wrestling, my father taught me boxing. We used to watch it on HBO a lot or when I was in school he would call and ask me if i was watching the fight. We both thought that the Gatti-Ward series was some of the best boxing ever and we both were cheering like fools when George Foreman won the Heavyweight title at his age.

I still cry every time I hear the song Dance With My Father, To be honest I have no ideal when I will ever stop. If you have lost your father then the song makes too much scenes, if you haven't then please talk to him and tell him you love him.

Leader of the Band tell how sometimes I feel like my life has been a bad attempt to try and follow what he taught me. Sometimes I do good and sometimes not but I never quit trying, he taught me that. Been crying over that song today.

Tears On Heaven, Eric Clapton wrote this song after his son died and when I heard it on MTV many years ago I thought, this can be a sons call to his father also, I've been thinking a lot today will we know each other in heaven, what will I do when I see him again? Will he be happy for the decisions that I have made in my life?

I saw my very strong father wither away with the cancer and it made me upset. I am so angry with Dow Chemical over A.O. But every time I get angry with them I recall what he said about it, "If its God's will then I will recover if not, I'm going home." "I am my fathers son". I have been told by alot of his friends that I do act like him. I chose the Washington Redskins and my football team because he was a Cowboy fan. I can recall Thanksgiving games when my step-mother was like, Oh no, Dallas vs Washington.

I lost my mother in November 1979 and she was buried in Ft Bliss Texas, my father is now buried with her their. The funeral was weird I didn't cry, still really haven't, just the moments when I hear the songs. The one thing I have missed is that we used to talk about everything and anything, haven't found anybody to talk to here in Korea. I'm not married and no g.f here so today I here just trying to hold it together.

Readers if you have parents, please tell them that you love them. If their is a major problem, get it out in the open. Because if you don't one day you will no longer have the chance. If your like me today and you have somebody in your life, lean on them today, they will be glad that you did. I'm here alone just dong the best I can tonight.

Thanks for listening.

The final cut

Tears In Heaven
by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings

Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.

Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven?

I'll find my way Through night and day,
'Cause I know I just can't stay Here in heaven.

Time can bring you down, Time can bend your knees.
Time can break your heart, Have you begging please, begging please.

Beyond the door, There's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more Tears in heaven.

Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong Here in heaven.

The final cut

LUTHER VANDROSS

Dance With My Father


Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence
My father would lift me high and dance with my mother and me and then
Spin me around 'til I fell asleep
Then up the stairs he would carry me
And I knew for sure I was loved
If I could get another chance, another walk, another dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
How I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again
When I and my mother would disagree
To get my way, I would run from her to him
He'd make me laugh just to comfort me
Then finally make me do just what my mama said
Later that night when I was asleep
He left a dollar under my sheet
Never dreamed that he would be gone from me
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
'Cause I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again
Sometimes I'd listen outside her door
And I'd hear how my mother cried for him
I pray for her even more than me
I pray for her even more than me
I know I'm praying for much too much
But could you send back the only man she loved
I know you don't do it usually
But dear Lord she's dying
To dance with my father again
Every night I fall asleep and this is all I ever dream
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
'Cause I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again


Artist: Dan Fogelberg
LP/CD: The Innocent Age
Writer: Dan Fogelberg

An only child alone and wild
A cabinet maker’s son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none

He left his home and went his lone
And solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know
I never can repay

A quiet man of music
Denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once
But his music wouldn’t wait

He earned his love through discipline
A thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls
Took me years to understand

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyeslink to a non-NIEHS site are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul

My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy
To the leader of the band

My brothers’ lives were different
For they heard another call
One went to Chicago
And the other to St Paul

And I’m in Colorado
When I’m not in some hotel
Living out this life I’ve chose
And come to know so well

I thank you for the music
And your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go

I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
And, papa, I don’t think
I said, "I love you" near enough

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument
And his song is in my soul

My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy
To the leader of the band

I am the living legacy
To the leader of the band.

The final cut

www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/12920.htm

I received some very sad news today. I heard that an old TV friend had been beamed up by god. Goodbye old friend, you have lived long and prospered.

Congrats on todays honor. Us Redskins fans give our honored foes praise and you will go into the Ring of Honor when Dallas plays Washington. The way it should be. 

The final cut

Well this looks like it will be a very different month, the school that I am working at will have an extra summer sessions, so it looks like a little more work. I am looking forward to it.

I have learned one thing while living overseas. I do a lot of things here that I would never do in the USA. For example i have been waiting for sky life to install a dish for the last few days and I have had to wait here. I had a copy of the new Harry Potter and I was like (wth), Ill read it. I was most impressed by the book, I knew that someone close to harry had to die but wow, didn't see that one coming.

Also lately I been watching a few foreign films without subtitiles to try and improve my language skills, its a very slow pace and sad to say I'm not getting better at it. I went and saw a Korean film called "Hevens Soldiers" and I was very impressed to say the least. I'll buy it when Yongsan Station has it for 5000 W.

Im going to be staying down here in Daejeon this weekend. I'll explain later why..

The final cut

Quiet day yesterday.

Went back to Camp Carroll to do some Xmas shopping (I know its early but can never get a too early start on it) Once again saw somebody from the past and we recalled old times.

Went out to a bar called the cool bar here in Daejeon, it was a nice time and I realized something I am really the only GOP person in this area, the band tried to slam Bush with an REM song, but I like the song, "It the end of the world as we know it".

So I voted for Bush 2x as Texas Governor and 2x as president. I have been insuted by Canadians, Aussies, Qwi's, ect ect.. for my votes but hey this is who I am and I will keep voting for the GOP.

Like I said quiet day yesterday.

The final cut

Ok, I read it and I still don't believe it. Me and the Korean Times agreeing on an issue. It is sad that it took a stupid protest in Seoul and not the last 2 anti-USFK ones that I have earlier talked about. I have always felt sorry for these young police officers that have to stand and take BS and the Law doesn't do anything to stop them. Like I said, sad that this is what it took. My question is how about the BS from the so called legal ones, of if its anti-USFK, nobody cares?

Demonstrators' Occupation of Street
Law Should Be Strictly Applied to Illegal Protests


A democratic Republic of Korea governed by the rule of law vests the citizens with the constitutional rights to assemble and demonstrate, yet at the same time the supreme law restricts those rights for the sake of national security and social order. Last week, thousands of workers from the nationÂ’s top umbrella of trade unions occupied the very heart of Seoul, namely the Kwanghwamun area, to stage their illegal street demonstration.

It was no wonder that the traffic was paralyzed for hours, having caused severe inconvenience and damage to drivers and pedestrians, in the sizzling summer heat. The citizens who were driving in the area or passing by when the demonstrators occupied the street could not but lose their precious time, stranded in their cars or blocked by police lines. How could such an incident happen and be allowed in what should be a lawful country?

Thousands of riot police troops and dozens of police buses sealed the vicinity of the unionists’ demonstrations to prevent possible accidents. Yet, the state police power seemed to have no authority and looked helpless in applying the legal provisions to the workers who were causing citizens pain just in order to act toward their selfish goals. The unionized workers who take to the streets in pursuit of their own interests seem more concerned about harassing others than talking constructively about their demands.

They do not have the slightest right to harass other people and nothing can justify their illegal actions. It is disgusting that they care nothing for how their actions affect their fellow citizens. Even once did the militant union workers think of the pain our young drafted police troops suffered due to their illegal, violent protests under the scorching sun? (how about the abuse to your young drafted police take from anti-USFK protestors?)

Who will compensate for the damage caused by traffic jams as a result of the illegal street protests, namely lost productivity, wasted gasoline in this time of soaring crude prices and worsening air pollution, not to speak of the stress induced by being helplessly stranded in a car? The law enforcement authorities should adopt a tougher policy against illegal demonstrators. Demonstrations should be allowed only in specific areas to prevent the participants from harassing ordinary citizens intentionally or unintentionally. Otherwise the illegal practices must be severely dealt with according to law for the street is the place where people coexist.

Order in the streets is the very barometer of a developed, democratic society and is essential for social and national order. Let our young policemen perform their given duties of fighting crimes and social evils, particularly guarding the nation against possible terrorist attacks. Citizens must not be made to suffer any more from the gridlock caused by the illegal occupation of streets by unionized workers and various special interest groups.

Our citizens are fed up with the shameless strategy these demonstrators use in seizing the streets.

The final cut

While I was in Camp Carroll on Sunday, Pyeongtaek was the scene of a riot. I really do not understand why the are protesting and to be honest I have no ideal why the government allows these people to beat up on the young police officers. Then only thing I can guess is that they fear a repeat of A 1980 Kwangju happening again in 2005. I could be very wrong in this guess also.

(see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/752055.stm for a BBC version of what happened in 1980 Kwangju)

I was at Yongsan the day of the riots and I was like WTF, The US Army is leaving Seoul by 2008 and moving to Pyeongtaek, Some Pro-North Korean college students atempt to riot and its seen all over the world. Now we get this protest about the troops going to Pyeongtaek and the US Army needing more land. I have also seen a protest about the Korean workers who will loose jobs when the US Army leaves, but it was a very civil protest compared to these two.

So you want the US out of Seoul, you don't want any bigger base in Pyeongtaek, and you don't want to loose any jobs? Catch-22 for the US Big time.

I saw this today on english.chosun and i didn't know if the quote was a joke or he really believed this about the polution.

Pyeongtaek ‘Has No Land for U.S. Troops’
The Defense Ministry and Pyeongtaek residents are locked in escalating tensions over a plan to move U.S. bases to the town. The Defense Ministry plans to secure land for U.S. Forces in Korea scheduled for relocation from Seoul, Uijeongbu and Dongducheon, but locals say their land is not for sale.

The official announcement that the USFK would move its major bases to Pyeongtaek came last August. Under the redeployment plans, a total of 3.49 million pyeong (about 7.68 million square meters) is needed for the new bases -- close to three times the area U.S. bases currently occupy there. The area is to accommodate most of what is now Yongsan Garrison, Combined Forces Command, UN Command and the Second Infantry Division in Uijeongbu and Dongducheon, which will leave behind only a few training facilities. Locals and 135 civic groups have formed a committee to stop base expansion in their area. “We will reject all attempts to forcefully take the land." On Sunday, nearly 10,000 students, residents and members of rights groups took to the streets in a march against base expansion and war on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Ji-tae, a member of the committee, said, "Living near the U.S. bases, we've suffered for decades from environmental pollution, sound pollution and other things, and now we must surrender even our land?" He vowed the committee would accept no Defense Ministry offer predicated on compensation. A ministry official said that once plans to move U.S. bases to Pyeongtaek were in place, the ministry went to residents, held meetings and set up a mobile counseling center to woo support. That was “sufficient contact with local residents,” he said. The committee says none of the meetings attended by locals was conducted properly. Clashes with police during Sunday'’s march left about 100 injured. The Defense Ministry is under pressure to conclude the land purchases since the deadline for handing it over to the U.S. military is the end of the year. There is much concern that as long as the differences in opinion between the two sides continue, tensions in the Pyeongtaek area will worsen.

For move views on Sundays action please go to this link

http://jetiranger.tripod.com/BLOG/index.blog?from=20050711



This should be intresting to watch in the next few years.

The final cut

It was one of those days in Korea where you are like this can only happen in Korea.

Yesterday I returned to a former home of mine. I went back to Camp Carroll, South Korea.

When I joined the US Army back in 1989, I told the Army MEPHS center that I wanted to go to Korea for my first duty assignment and they gave it to me. I was told by my Drill Sgts. that, since I'm 6'4 (1.93 Meters) that I would be going to the DMZ area and they helped me memorize the camps of the 2 ID. So imagine my surprise when I get to Korea and they tell me that I am going to Camp Carroll. I had not a clue where Waegwan was and the only reason I recalled was that it was close to Taegu.

So I get their from May 1990 and I do not leave until Aug 1991. It was my first duty assigment and it was A very different one to say the lease.

I have been putting off going back their for various reasons and to be honest I'm still not sure why I was dreading going back, but I'm glad that I did.

I took a taxi to gate 4 from the train station and it was like memories from the past came back real fast, I was recalling all of the nights that I has guarded this gate and all of my MP friends and what we did and didn't do here. I walked around for a few minutes and I saw the old store where I used to get my hats and other Korean items from and It was the same guy their that sold me my hats along time ago. We talked and he updated me on a person from the 260th MP Co. I will go back and start to buy more clothes from him.

Then it got intresting.

I was walking down and I saw that their was a bar open, and it was about 3pm and i wanted an OB. So I walk in their and get a beer and I'm looking at this person and it was like ok you look familar and the reason he did was because we were both MP's together in 1995-96 in Ft Sill Oklahoma. We talked for awhile and I was like, ok this is strange..

Nope, it got even stranger.

An older man walked into the club and i was like Sgt... He looked shocked because nobody had called him that in years and he looked at me and he didnt at first recall my face but he did my name. He was my first Platoon Sgt here in Camp Carroll Korea. After we started talking the more he remembered me. To be honest my first few months in the Army I was not the best soldier at all To be more honest I was a screw up. I just couldn't do anything right for the longest time. He said you always seemed to be in trouble, I saw alot of him my first few months in his office. We were talking about my first inspection and I so fouled that up, he told me that the SGM (Sergeant Major) chewed my ass, his and stopped the inspection after that. We rememebred people that we were stationed with and caught up on a lot of things.

Then I left and had dinner at one of the ville restaurants and it was just as i remembered the food tasting then.

It was good to go home again, I'll go back next month again.

The final cut

Well the LA Times has done a great job with the articles on North Korea and this one is no different.

GLIMPSES OF A HERMIT NATION
Trading Ideals for Sustenance
# Hunger is driving North Koreans to capitalistic enterprises and weakening the communist regime's iron grip.

By Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer

For most of her life, Kim Hui Suk had spouted the sayings of North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung and never for a moment harbored a doubt: Capitalists were the enemy. Individualism was evil. But then disaster rained down on her hometown, Chongjin, on North Korea's remote east coast. Factories ran out of fuel. Food rations stopped. Watching her family slowly succumb to the famine — her mother-in-law, husband and son eventually would die of starvation — Kim realized she had to change.

Once a stickler for following the rules, she bribed a bureaucrat so she could sell her apartment. Then, with no business skills other than the ability to calculate on an abacus, she used the proceeds of the sale to set herself up in a black market business, hawking biscuits and moonshine she brewed from corn. Kim could have been sent away for life for such crimes. But obeying the rules would have meant a death sentence. "The simple and kind-hearted people who did what they were told — they were the first to die of starvation," said Kim, a soft-spoken grandmother who now lives in South Korea and has adopted a new name to protect family members still in the North.

The famine that killed 2 million North Koreans in the mid-1990s and the death of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, in 1994 sparked vast changes across the secretive communist country. Markets are springing up in the shadows of abandoned factories, foreign influences are breaching the borders, inflation is soaring and corruption is rampant. A small nouveau riche class has emerged, even as a far larger group has been forced to trade away everything for food. This is the picture of life in North Korea as painted by more than 30 people from Chongjin, the nation's thirdlargest city. Some are defectors living in South Korea. Others were interviewed in China, which they had entered illegally to work or beg. Accounts of aid workers and videos taken illegally in Chongjin by disgruntled residents were also used to prepare this report.

Although the North Korean regime has a reputation as the ultimate Big Brother, people from Chongjin say the public pays less and less heed to what the government says. There is little that might be called political dissent, but residents describe a pervasive sense of disillusionment that remains largely unspoken. "People are not stupid. Everybody thinks our own government is to blame for our terrible situation," said a 39-year-old coal miner from Chongjin who was interviewed late last year during a visit to China. "We all know we think that, and we all know everybody else thinks that. We don't need to talk about it." Kim Sun Bok, a 32-year-old former factory worker who came to South Korea last summer, said the country was "changing incredibly." "It is not the same old North Korea anymore except in name."

Just a decade ago, when people in Chongjin needed new trousers, they had to go to government-owned stores that sold items mostly in drab browns or a dull shade of indigo. Food and other necessities were rationed. Sometimes the government permitted the sale of home-grown vegetables, but even a hairbrush was supposed to be purchased from a state-run shop. Today, people can shop at markets all over Chongjin, the result of a burst of entrepreneurship grudgingly allowed by the authorities. Almost anything can be purchased — ice cream bars from China, pirated DVDs, cars, Bibles, computers, real estate and sex — for those who can afford the high prices. The retail mecca is Sunam market, a wood-frame structure with a corrugated tin roof that is squeezed between two derelict factories.

The aisles brim with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, scallions, watermelons and cabbage, as shown by rare video footage taken last year by the Osaka, Japan-based human rights group Rescue the North Korean People. Everything else comes from China: belts, shoes, umbrellas, notebooks, plates, aluminum pots, knives, shovels, toy cars, detergents, shampoos, lotions, hand creams and makeup. Each of Chongjin's seven administrative districts has a state-sanctioned market. Sunam, the city's largest, is expanding, and some say it has a wider variety of goods than the main market in Pyongyang. Many vendors wear their licenses pinned to their right breasts while the obligatory Kim Il Sung buttons remain over the heart.

Although markets have been expanding for more than a decade, it was only in 2002 and '03 that the government enacted economic reforms that lifted some of the prohibitions against them. Most of the vendors are older women such as Kim Hui Suk, a tiny 60-year-old with short, permed hair and immaculate clothing. She was working in the day-care center of a textile factory in the early 1990s when production ground to a halt. Men were ordered to stay in their jobs, but Workers' Party cadres at the factory started whispering that the married women, or ajumas, ought to moonlight to provide for their families. "It was clear that the ajumas had to go out and earn money or the family would starve," Kim said.

She first tried to raise pigs, locking them in a shed outside her downtown apartment building and feeding them slop left over from making tofu. But the electricity and water were too unreliable to keep the business going. In 1995, Kim sold her apartment in the choice Shinam district and bought a cheaper one, hoping to use the proceeds to import rice from the countryside. But that too failed when she injured her back and couldn't work. The family's situation became dire. Her husband's employer, a provincial radio station, stopped paying salaries, and food distribution ended. In 1996, her mother-in-law died of starvation, and her husband the following year.

"First he got really, really thin and then bloated. His last words to me were, 'Let's get a bottle of wine, go to a restaurant and enjoy ourselves,' " Kim recalled. "I felt bad that I couldn't fulfill his last wish." In 1998, Kim's 26-year-old son, who had been a wrestler and gymnast, grew weak from hunger and contracted pneumonia. A shot of penicillin from the market would have cost 40 won, the same price as enough corn powder to feed herself and her three daughters for a week. She opted for the corn and watched her son succumb to the infection. But Kim did not give up. She swapped apartments again and used the money to start another business, this time baking biscuits and neungju, a potent corn moonshine. If buyers didn't have cash, she would accept chile powder or anything else she could use.

"We made just enough to put food on the table," said Kim. Much of Chongjin's commerce is still not officially sanctioned, so it has an impromptu quality. Money changes hands over wooden carts that can be rolled away in a hurry. Those who can't afford carts sell on tarpaulins laid out in the dirt. Fashion boutiques are slapped together with poles and clotheslines, enlivening the monochromatic landscape with garish pinks and paisleys. Some clothes have the labels ripped out and vendors whisper that these items came from araet dongne or the "village below," a euphemism for South Korea, whose products are illegal in the North. Shoppers can buy 88-pound sacks of rice emblazoned with U.S. flags, and biscuits and corn noodles produced by three factories in Chongjin run by the U.N. World Food Program — all intended to be humanitarian handouts.

Some people cut hair or repair bicycles, though furtively because these jobs are supposed to be controlled by the government's Convenience Bureau.
"They will bring a chair and mirror to the market to cut hair," Kim said. "The police can come at any moment, arrest them and confiscate their scissors." Another new business is a computer salon. It looks like an Internet cafe, but because there's no access to the Web in North Korea, it is used mostly by teenagers to play video games. More products are available, but inflation puts them out of reach for most people. The price of rice has increased nearly eightfold since the economic reforms of 2002 to 525 won per pound; an average worker earns 2,500 won a month — about $1 at the unofficial exchange rate.

World Food Program officials in North Korea say the vast majority of the population is less well off since the economic changes, especially factory workers, civil servants, retirees and anybody else on a fixed income. But there are those who have gotten rich. Poor Chongjin residents disparage them as donbulrae, or money insects. "There are people who started trading early and figured out the ropes," said a 64-year-old retired math teacher who sells rabbits at the market. "But those of us who were loyal and believed in the state, we are the ones who are suffering." If Chongjin's economic center is Sunam market, its political heart is Pohang Square, a vast plaza dominated by a 25-foot bronze statue of Kim Il Sung.

The grass here is neatly mowed, the shrubbery pruned and the pavement in good repair. Even when the rest of the city is without electricity, the statue is bathed in light. Across the street, a tidy pink building houses a permanent exhibit of the national flower, a hybrid begonia called Kimjongilia, named for current leader Kim Jong Il. Since the practice of religion is barred, Pohang Square stands in as a spiritual center. Newlyweds in their best clothes pose for pictures, bowing to the statue so that their union is symbolically blessed. When Kim Il Sung died on July 8, 1994, half a million people came to Pohang Square to pay their respects in the pouring rain and stifling heat. But among the adoring multitudes, there were malcontents.

One was Ok Hui, the eldest daughter of entrepreneur Kim Hui Suk. Though she dutifully took her place in the throng, any sadness she felt came from a foreboding that Kim Jong Il would be worse than his father. "I went day and night along with everybody else. You had to…. But there were no tears coming from my eyes," recalled Ok Hui, now 39, who did not want her family name published. Ok Hui worked for a construction company's propaganda unit, a job that entailed riding around in a truck with a megaphone, exhorting workers to do their best for the fatherland. But she didn't believe what she preached.

Her father had taught her to doubt the regime. As a reporter and member of the Workers' Party, he knew more about the outside world than many people and realized how far North Korea lagged behind South Korea and China. "He and his friends would stay up at night when my mother was out, talking about what a thief Kim Jong Il was," Ok Hui said. Her mother, though, remained a firm believer. "I lived only for the marshal. I never had a thought otherwise," said Kim Hui Suk. "Even when my husband and son died, I thought it was my fault." Ok Hui and her mother frequently clashed. "Why did you give birth to me in this horrible country?" Ok Hui remembers taunting her mother. "Shut up! You're a traitor to your country!" Kim retorted. "Whom do you love more? Kim Jong Il or me?" her daughter shot back.

The regime was probably less beloved in Chongjin than elsewhere in North Korea. Food had run out in its province, North Hamgyong, earlier than in other areas, and starvation rates were among the highest in the nation. Chongjin's people are reputed to be the most independent-minded in North Korea. One famous report of unrest centers on the city. In 1995, senior officers from the 6th army corps in Chongjin were executed for disloyalty and the entire unit, estimated at 40,000 men, was disbanded. It is still unclear whether the incident was an attempted uprising or a corruption case.

Chongjin is known for its vicious gang wars, and it was sometimes difficult to distinguish political unrest from ordinary crime. There were increasing incidents of theft and insubordination. At factories, desperate workers dismantled machinery or stripped away copper wiring to sell for food. Public executions by firing squad were held outside Sunam market and on the lawn of the youth park, once a popular lover's lane. In a village called Ihyon-ri on the outskirts of Chongjin, a gang suspected of anti-government activities killed a national security agent who had tried to infiltrate the group, former kindergarten teacher Seo Kyong Hui said. "This guy was from my village. He had been sent to inform on a group that was engaged in suspicious activities," she said. "They caught him and stoned him to death."

Work crews went out early in the morning to wash away any anti-regime graffiti painted overnight, according to human rights groups, but most people were too scared to express their discontent. Badmouthing the leadership is still considered blasphemy. To discourage anti-regime activity, North Korea punishes "political crimes" by banishing entire families to remote areas or labor camps. "If you have one life to live, you would gladly give it to overthrow this government," said Seo, the teacher. "But you are not the only one getting punished. Your family will go through hell." Even as Kim Jong Il's regime weakens, many of its stalwarts are growing richer. Many of Chongjin's well-to-do are members of the Workers' Party or are connected to the military or security services. In the new economy, they use their ties to power to trade with China, obtain market licenses, extract bribes and sell bureaucratic favors.

"Those who have power in North Korea always figure out ways to make money," said Joo Sung Ha, 31, who grew up in Chongjin and now works as a journalist in Seoul. Joo was the pampered only son of a prominent official, and his family lived in Shinam, in the city's northern hills overlooking the ocean. By the standards of South Korea or China, the single-family homes with lines of fish and squid drying from the roofs are nothing special. But for North Koreans, these are mansions. The Joo family had a 2,000-square-foot cement-block house and a walled garden about twice that large. The garden proved crucial in protecting the family against the famine, though they had to contend with hungry soldiers who would scale the walls and steal potatoes and cabbages. North Korean families like to measure their status by the number of wardrobes they own, and Joo's family had five — plus a television, a refrigerator, a tape recorder, a sewing machine, an electric fan and a camera. They didn't have a phone or a car — at that time those were unthinkable even for a well-off family — but they did have a bicycle.

"The appliances were of no use after the electricity ran out," Joo said. "The bicycle was the most important thing, because the buses and trams stopped running." Joo attended the best elementary school in Chongjin, the city's foreign language institute, and eventually the country's top school, Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. He never met a native English speaker in the North, or any foreigner for that matter, but he trained his ear with videotapes of the BBC and banned Hollywood films. "I sometimes watched 'Gone With the Wind' twice a day. Anybody else would have been arrested for watching Hollywood movies," he recalled. Joo's glimpses of Western culture eroded his loyalty to the system. "I saw myself 20 years down the road in the prime of my career and North Korea would be collapsing," he said.

While many of his classmates went to work for the regime's propaganda news service after graduating, Joo arranged to return to Chongjin, where he taught high school until he escaped in 2001. "The people from our neighborhood couldn't understand," said Joo, who stays in contact with his family. "They thought I had everything." Kim Hye Young, an actress, was also a child of privilege. Her father, Kim Du Seon, was an official of a trading company that sold mushrooms and fish in China. He learned how to navigate the bureaucracy, using his connections with the army and security services. "If one of [the officials] had a wedding in the family, they would come to me for a couple of cases of wine," the older Kim said.

As trade with China became more important, the family prospered. They took drives in a company car and ate at Chongjin's nicest restaurant. Growing up, Kim showed a flair for theater, and through her acting became a member of the elite in her own right. Her best-known role was in a play called "The Strong and the Righteous," in which she portrayed a spy who sacrifices her life for North Korea. When the production won first place in a Pyongyang drama festival in 1996, she got to meet Kim Jong Il. Still breathless with the memory, she said the leader shook her hand and gave her a fountain pen. "I knew that I, as an actress, had an important role to promote the ideology of my country," Kim said.

Kim and her sisters were largely oblivious to the famine, and their mother said she took pains to shelter them. "My daughters don't know to this day how many children in our neighborhood starved to death," said her mother, Choe Geum Lan. She also didn't tell them that their father, as a result of his business trips to China, had become increasingly pessimistic about North Korea's future. In 1998, when Kim was home from Pyongyang on vacation, her parents told her the family was going to visit an aunt in Musan, a city near the Chinese border. It was not until they had crossed to the other side that Kim and her teenage sisters, were told they had defected. Kim, now 29 and advertising toothpaste on South Korean television, is one of the few defectors who says she didn't want to leave. "I was content with my life," she said.

Today, North Korea's elites are even better off, buying telephones for their homes and even cars. "For $4,000 or $5,000, anybody can buy a car now. It used to be that you weren't allowed to register your own car. We couldn't dream of it," said Kim Yong Il, a defector from Chongjin who lives in Seoul. Recently, he arranged to have a computer smuggled from China to his relatives in Chongjin. North Korea's state-run companies don't have computers, so they're eager to hire people who do. "If you have a computer, you can get a job," he said. Visitors have been shocked to glimpse the new conspicuous consumption in Chongjin.

Jeung Young Tai, a South Korean academic who was in Chongjin delivering South Korean government aid, noticed a paunchy man standing in front of the Chonmasan Hotel next to a new Lexus. And at a hot spring in Kyongsong, on the city's outskirts, he saw a woman carrying a lap dog — a striking sight in a country where there is so little food that the only pets usually are goldfish. "You get the sense that there is a tremendous gap between rich and poor and that the gap is growing," Jeung said.

The flip side, of course, is that the poor are getting poorer. In Chongjin, those at the very bottom of the heap can be found at the train station. The cavernous building boasts a large portrait of Kim Il Sung above the entrance and a granite-faced clock that rarely tells the right time. In front is a vast plaza crammed with people waiting for trains — sometimes for days, because the trains have no fixed schedules — and people waiting for nothing at all. These are the homeless, many of them children. They're called kotchebi, or swallows, because they wander the streets and sometimes between towns in search of food. Many gravitate to Chongjin station, because it is a major hub and the travelers have more to give.

A video shot last year by a military official and sold to Japan's NTV television captured barefoot children near the station in torn, filthy clothing fighting over a nearly empty jar of kimchi. One boy scooted along the pavement on his buttocks; the narrator said his toes had been eaten away by frostbite. Kim Hyok knows how easy it is for a child to end up at the station; he spent the better part of two years living there. "If you can't find somebody or they left their home, chances are you can find them at the station," said Kim, now 23 and resettled in South Korea.

Kim's mother died when he was a toddler, and he was raised by his father, a party member and an employee of a military unit that sold fish in China. During his early childhood, Kim, his father and elder brother lived in relative comfort in a high-rise apartment in the Sunam district. When the government stopped handing out rations in 1993, Kim's father used his connections to place his sons in an orphanage 60 miles away. Kim, who was about 12 at the time, wasn't sorry to be sent away. It was considered a privilege because the orphanages had food. In 1997, just before his 16th birthday, Kim "graduated" from the orphanage. He caught a train back to Chongjin, but when he got to his neighborhood, things looked unfamiliar. The electricity was off. Many apartment buildings had no glass in the windows and appeared vacant.

Climbing the eight flights in pitch dark to his family's unit, he heard a baby crying and wondered whose it might be. Confused and scared, he knocked on the door. A young couple opened the door and told him his father had moved long ago but left a message: Look for him at the train station. The phenomenon of vagrancy is testament to how much North Korea has changed. Before the famine, the government controlled people's movements so strictly that they could not dream of visiting a relative in a nearby town without a travel permit, let alone selling their homes. Not showing up for work could bring a visit from police. But as people embarked on increasingly desperate hunts for food, families broke apart. With few telephones and a barely functional postal service, parents and children became separated.

"People just started wandering around because they were hungry," Kim said. "They would sell their apartments for a few bags of rice."
Kim never found his father. He also never found his brother, who had left the orphanage a year earlier. With no place to go, Kim ended up at the train station. By night, he slept squeezed into a narrow space designed for a sliding iron gate. By day, he loitered near the food vendors on the plaza. He often worked with a gang of other kids — a few would topple a vendor's cart and the others would scoop up whatever spilled.

"If you're not fast, you can't eat," said Kim, who even today in South Korea bears the signs of chronic malnutrition, with a head that looks oversized on a shockingly short frame. Kim began hopping the slow-moving trains that pass through Chongjin on their way to the Chinese border. Once on board, Kim would scramble up to the top of a car, flatten himself to avoid the electric lines above and, using his pack as a pillow, ride for hours. At the border, he would wade across the river to hawk the items in his pack: household goods on consignment from Chongjin residents, who were selling off their possessions.

In 1998, Kim was arrested by Chinese authorities, who do not recognize North Koreans as refugees. He was sent back to North Korea and spent two years in a prison camp before escaping again in 2000 to China, where he was eventually taken in by missionaries and brought to South Korea. For every homeless person who survived, many more likely died. Kim Hui Suk recalled a particularly ghoulish scene at the train station. "Once I saw them loading three bodies into a cart," Kim said. "One guy, a man in his 40s, was still conscious. His eyes were sort of blinking, but they still were taking him away." Although the ranks of the homeless have thinned since the height of the famine, North Korean residents say their numbers are still considerable. "If somebody disappears, you don't know whether he dropped dead on the road or went to China," the coal miner said.

About 100,000 North Koreans have escaped to China in the last 10 years. Many have ended up returning to North Korea, either because they were deported or because they missed their families. They often back bring money, goods to trade and strange new ideas. Smugglers carry chests that can hold up to 1,000 pirated DVDs. South Korean soap operas, movies about the Korean War and Hollywood action films are among the most popular. Even pornography is making its way in. This is a radical change for a country so prudish that until recently women were not permitted to ride bicycles because it was thought too provocative. Seo Kyong Hui, the kindergarten teacher, said that when she left North Korea in 1998, "I was 26 years old, and I still didn't know how a baby was conceived."

Even today, women are prohibited from wearing short skirts or sleeveless shirts, and both sexes are forbidden to wear blue jeans. Infractions bring rebukes from the public standards police. But it is a losing battle to maintain what used to be a hermetic seal around the country. Just a few years ago, ordinary North Koreans could make telephone calls only from post offices. Dialing abroad was virtually impossible. Now some people carry Chinese cellphones and pay for rides to the border to pick up a signal and call overseas. Smugglers also bring in cheap Chinese radios. Unlike North Korean radios, which are preset to government channels, the Chinese models can be tuned to anything, even South Korean programs or the Korean-language broadcasts of Radio Free Asia.

In the past, being caught with such contraband would land a person in political prison. Nowadays, security personnel will more likely confiscate the illicit item for personal use. When a policeman caught Ok Hui, the entrepreneur's daughter, with a Chinese radio in 2001, the first question he asked was, "So how do you work this thing?" She wrote down the frequencies for South Korean radio stations. "Don't you have earphones so you can listen without anybody hearing you?" the officer then demanded.

North Korea instructs its citizens that the country is a socialist paradise, but the government knows outside influences can puncture its carefully crafted illusions. "Bourgeois anti-communist ideology is paralyzing the people's sound mind-set," warns a Workers' Party document dated April 2005. "If we allow ourselves to be affected by these novel ideas, our absolute idolization for the marshal [Kim Il Sung] will disappear." Among those who make it to China, many describe a moment of epiphany when they find out just how bad off North Koreans are.

Kim Ji Eun, a doctor from Chongjin, remembers wading across the partially frozen Tumen River in March 1999, staggering to a Chinese farmhouse and seeing a dish of white rice and meat set out in a courtyard. "I couldn't figure it out at first. I thought maybe it was for refrigeration," recalled Kim, who now lives in South Korea. "Then I realized that dogs in China live better than even party members in North Korea." Many Chongjin residents who are caught trying to flee the country end up back in the city, behind the barbed wire of Nongpo Detention Center.

It sits near the railroad tracks in a swampy waterfront area. Prisoners are assigned back-breaking jobs in the nearby rice paddies or brick factory, where the workday begins at 5 a.m. Ok Hui was one of those who served time in Nongpo. A rebel by nature, she had become fed up with North Korea and a difficult marriage. In September 2001, during one of several failed attempts to escape, she was arrested in Musan and brought back to Chongjin by train. Guards tied the female prisoners to one another by tightly winding shoelaces around their thumbs.

In Nongpo, the inmates bunked in rows of 10, squeezed so tightly together that they had to sleep on their sides. Newcomers sometimes had to bed down in the corridor near overflowing toilets. Meals consisted of a thin, salty soup, sometimes supplemented by a few kernels of raw corn or a chunk of uncooked potato. "The walls were very high and surrounded by wire," Ok Hui said. "One woman tried to climb the wall. They beat her almost to death. You can't imagine. They made us stand and watch." One day, when she was assigned to work in the fields, she spotted an old woman. She took off her underwear and offered it to the woman in exchange for sending a message to her mother. Underwear is scarce in North Korea, so the woman accepted and agreed to send a telegram to Ok Hui's mother.

With her market earnings, Kim Hui Suk bought 10 packs of cigarettes for a security official to arrange her daughter's release. Some days later, the prison administrator came to talk to Ok Hui and other female prisoners who were picking corn. They were all due to be freed shortly, and the administrator urged them to resist the temptations of capitalism and imperialism, and to devote themselves to North Korea.

Then, he asked for a show of hands: Who would promise not to run away again to China? Not a single woman raised her arm. "We were all just thinking that our whole lives we had been told lies," Ok Hui recalled. "Our whole lives, in fact, were lies. We just felt this immense rage toward the system." The prison administrator looked at the women squatting sullenly in silence in the cornfield. "Well," he said, "if you go again to China, next time don't get caught."

Forty days after her release, Ok Hui escaped again to China and made her way to South Korea. She used $8,000 in resettlement money from South Korea's government to pay a broker to smuggle her mother out of North Korea. Today Ok Hui works in a funeral home and her mother as a housekeeper.

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Jinna Park of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.