Since Gord has defended my integrity...

Early Egyptian Juggling Art
Networking can be an art in itself...

(Image from Wikipedia)

... and because we go way back to our shared childhood roots, and because we drink together "every night until 2:00 am, 3:00 am, 4:00 am when ... [we] have to get up for work at 7:00 am the next morning," and because we are going to network our own good ol' boys' group with Gord in charge -- hence calling it the "Gord ol' boys" -- to ensure that we always have enough contacts and influence to land tenured jobs in big-name universities, and because...

... well, actually, none of this is true, except for Gord's having defended my integrity against a trolling Anonymous -- but that's reason enough, so I'm urging everyone to surf over to Gord's eclexys site and read "My Girlfriend's Grade," which sketches a fascinating if dismaying picture of the right stuff for becoming a successful medical doctor in Korea, which turns out to be the same right stuff for becoming successful in other professions here: networking.

By networking, one makes the right grade, the high grade, the success-enhancing grade. So why doesn't Korea collapse into a sheer, incompetent mess?

It doesn't collapse because Koreans aren't stupid, and they know what the high grade means, so the system adjusts for expected incompetence of the high-flyers:

The one reassuring thing from the conversation was this: when I complained that, say, if I develop bowel cancer and go to the hospital, I don't want some idiot who does everything halfway, but managed to get a top grade because he was a supervisor's buddy, to be the one treating me. I want a good doctor, someone who was careful, who has experience, who knows what she is doing. "Oh, don't worry. All the doctors who get the top grade all want to make a lot of money," she said, "So they never specialize in anything that has to do with life-saving procedures. They all become plastic surgeons and things like that. So you don't need to worry about life-threatening illness. The doctors who got top grades will never be the ones you meet."

Reassuring ... unless you need to have your fanny tucked. I find appropriate the fact that those doctors who obtain a merely superficial medical education are precisely the ones who deal in superficial medical practices like plastic surgery and who pursue the superficial goal of making a lot of money.

Not that there's anything wrong with money...

Speaking of high-flying careers, see Gord's post on the scientific art of the new juggling.

For the record, I don't know Gord personally, but it's true that he defended me (so he obviously doesn't know me at all).