I don’t know how I’ve been living without this news site – it’s as if I’ve finally seen the light. Forget BBC, AP, NY Times, CNN, and The Onion. Who needs those news outlets when you can get news from the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK! With articles such as “Beer Popular among Koreans” and “Okryu Restaurant Becomes More Popular for Terrapin Dishes”, clearly you cannot go wrong. I would continue to extol its virtues, but I think these snippets speak for themselves.

Unshakable is the revolutionary will of the army and people of the DPRK to mete out a thousand-fold punishment to the puppet war-thirsty forces, who are making desperate efforts to start a war against the DPRK at any cost…

It goes to prove that the United States is the arch criminal disturbing world peace and stability and the chieftain of genocide and human rights abuses.

The DPRK has a heroic Korean People’s Army, equipped with powerful attack and defense means, and an invincible might of the people closely united in mind.

The south Korean regime will surely have to pay dearly for its clumsy ploy against the fellow countrymen in the north.

As already reported, the south Korean puppet military gangsters have carved slogans for anti-DPRK psychological warfare on walls of MP posts in the Demilitarized Zone

Credit, of course, goes to the Korea News Agency (KNS) of Japan for the English news (they even have Spanish translations!).

Yesterday, the night before the great March 4th demonstration, the professor of my wealth and poverty course proposed a simple question. He asked the class, “What is happening tomorrow? I hear there’s a strike. Can someone explain this to me?” A girl in the back of the lecture hall raised her hand and proceeded to address the injustice faced by students in the UC system, and how the strike was meant to create awareness for this issue across the state (as if it wasn’t well-known already). Most of what she said was valid; however, Professor Reich then asked, “What is the purpose of this strike? Where is the power? Who are we striking against?”

Everyone let that question sink in for a few moments. It made us think – can we really call this a strike? For the past week, campus has been dotted with white, maroon, and black posters. All of them loudly proclaim, “MARCH 4TH STRIKE!” It seems we’ve forgotten the real meaning of the word. In the past, strikes were about a group of people, namely workers, banding together to gain economic power to fight unfair wages and conditions. The workers essentially shut down the factory for the duration of their strike, which in turn was costly for the employers. So here, at UC Berkeley, who exactly are we striking against? Some say it’s the legislators – but who are they to care whether or not we attend classes? We’re not directly hurting them or their business by refusing to step onto campus. Who ends up sustaining the brunt of the damage?

In fact, we’re only hurting ourselves by refusing the very product that we are paying for. I’m not against protests and demonstrations – they’re powerful if executed in a non-violent and rational manner. And of all things to defend, public education is most definitely high up on the list, if not at the top. However, let’s stop kidding ourselves with illusions of grandeur and stop describing these acts as strikes. Instead, let us defend public education through our own means, without stripping words of their true meaning.

Just the other day, I was actually thinking about Chinese last names, and the popularity of certain surnames. Then this article popped up on the NY Times today. As if individuality in names wasn’t enough of a problem already, the Chinese government manages to pwn those who have managed to procure somewhat unique names.

Lol @ the response from an official when a girl wanted to renew her identity card:

“Your name is so troublesome and problematic,” she recalled an official telling her. “Just change it.”

If only I could just say that to anything troublesome or problematic in my life, psh.

Out of curiosity, I looked up Wen on the list of the 100 most common surnames in China. I was expecting it to be around 40 – 60, but surprisingly enough, it’s not even in the top 100. Aw, I feel speshul.

Imagine if the US government did something like this in regards to first names- I would never have to see porn star names like “Krystii” on my Starbucks cups ever again!

China really seems to be on a roll nowadays. First, Wen Jiabao scolds the US for taking on a protectionist edge- role reversal much? Then, China wants to break up with the US dollar to take on a “new super-sovereign reserve currency.” And if the whole Huiyuan-Coca-Cola fallout didn’t make Chinese intentions clear enough, China blocked YouTube for allowing a video of the beating of Tibetans by Chinese officials to be uploaded.

Although, apparently, everything’s hunkydory again, since YouTube is back up and accessible in China. Really, what’s the point of blocking the site, anyways? That just generates curiosity as to why the hell it’s blocked, and people will use proxies to find the omgscandalous!video. Which is pretty counterintuitive, si? Then again, it might be worth it to see amazing comments, like the ones here. Oh man, haha.

I’m definitely looking forward to the coming months as China pulls more power plays like these.