Crazy, Wacky, English Teacher Man

Since coming to Korea, I have had the opportunity to do many new things. Some of these I have done with great enjoyment (going to the beach, visiting the Pusan Aquarium, touring the DMZ); others I have done with great endurance (eating squid, smelling garlic EVERYWHERE, squeezing into an overstuffed subway car). There is one thing, however, that has required a particularly high level of endurance lately: teaching English to 3 and 4 year old children. Yes, you read that correctly. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I get to lay aside my many years of training and teaching as a Classicist and take up the mantle of "Crazy, Wacky, English Teacher Man". This Jeckyl/Hyde transformation is a truly singular challenge. As you might have already guessed, students of the belles lettres are not necessarily best suited for such an endeavor. But nevertheless, 3 days a week you can find me, or at least a person resembling me in appearence only, "teaching" English to 31 screaming, crying, oozing pre-kindergarten children.

And to think that I might actually be at Harvard this fall!?!?

Kum Ba Yah

On Monday night, the English class that I typically teach to a group of employees at my companies Southern Branch Office was canceled. Unfortunately, through a series of mis/failed communications, I was not informed of this fact until I actually arrived at the branch office. I walked into the classroom in which I typically teach to find one of the students sitting at the conference table studying. Only he wasn't studying English. He was studying for some type of regulatory laws exam that all of the company employees (except me, of course) are taking this week. Although he can hardly speak a complete sentence of intelligible English, I understood quickly through the ubiquitous Korean sign for "No" (forming an "x" with your hands) that there would be no class.

So I quickly turned around and got right back on a bus for home in order to minimize my losses. Although I had indeed gotten on the correct bus, it was not at the right point in its circuit to take me quickly (that means 30-40 minutes in the city) back home. After realizing this fact 30 minutes later, I got off the bus and jumped into a taxi. As the taxi driver and I sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, taking in the glorious cityscape (construction, trash, and high rise mounds of concrete), and enjoying the smells of diesel exhaust and unwashed humanity (the taxi driver was not the most hygenic I have had), the sweet sounds of "Kum Ba Yah" come drifting dreamily through the radio. What a truly transcendental experience!

Eroding Values

"We need the most talented people; we need the language skills. We need patriotic Americans who exist across the board in our population. We don't need moral judgment from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs."

~House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Such were the great words uttered by the esteemed Nancy Pelosi yesterday in her response to General Peter Pace's comments regarding homosexuality in the military. Having served 4 years in the Marine Corps alongside a man whom I knew to be a homosexual by his own admission (I can explain that to you if you ask), I feel as if I have some right to pontificate about both Pace's comments and the "Don't ask don't tell policy." But I won't. My friends (i.e. those people who know me well), should already know my position on these issues. Not only this, but my real beef is with the comments of Nancy Pelosi.

Having seen her name printed alongside numerous outrageous comments in the past, and attaching the "value" that I typically attach to comments of the majority of politicians, there is really no surprise in her statement. But let's consider it more carefully.

Pelosi argues that it is not appropriate for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to make what she calls "moral judgements". On what grounds can she make such a claim? Better yet, if we are to exclude moral judgement from the evaluative criteria used by the Joint Chiefs, then what criteria ought they to use? The wikipedia entry for the Joint Chiefs states under "Roles and Responsibilites" the following:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff also act in an advisory military capacity for the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. In addition, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acts as the chief military advisor to the President and the Secretary of Defense. In this strictly advisory role, the Joint Chiefs constitute the second-highest deliberatory body for military policy, after the National Security Council, which includes the President and other officials besides the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

And so, their words have a lot of power to influence the Commander-in-Chief. For example, should the President seek to go to war against an oil rich, Middle Eastern country which is being led by a murderous dictator, they would be the ones to consult. Can we assume that Speaker Pelosi would prefer that they abstain from passing any moral judgements about the potential loss of life involved in such an expedition? Surely, they should restrict their judgements to the military readiness of the forces and disregard any moralistic rationalizing when executing their advising duties. Decisions should be made purely on the basis of military superiority and dollars and sense.

In fact, it is probably not moral judgments from which Speaker Pelosi wants the general to abstain, but rather she wants him to abstain from any judgments that might disagree with her own moral compass. She values freedom of speech and religion in so far as they are free to agree with her. Although I consider myself to be a fairly apolitical person, it is difficult for me, at this distance, to swallow such ill-thought criticism.