Saved in Her Bedroom?

Sewol Report

Sewol. Sunk. Four years ago. Over 300 lives lost through stupidity and ignorance. This preventable sea-faring tragedy in which so many students died always angers me, especially when I think of the utterly and entirely wrong instructions given, namely, the order that told passengers to remain in their cabins, where they drowned.

As for the attempt to hold the then-President Park Geun-hye responsible for the lives lost, I think that this is entirely wrong-headed and largely the reason that Korea has such tragic accidents again and again, for what is assumed is a Korean top-down approach to decision-making, such that potential rescuers wait to be told what to do by higher-ups who don't even know what is happening.

This was again brought to mind in an assumption made by the reporter Ser Moja in the opening line of her report in a recent edition of the Korea Joongang Daily (March 29, 2018). Ser's generally a good reporter, but the implication that Park Geun-hye could have saved any lives is absurd. This report had another failing in this same line, a sentence construction that makes the report sound even more absurd (and that should have been caught by an editor, even if just a copy-editor):

On the day of the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014, then-President Park Geun-hye spent crucial early hours when people could have been saved in her bedroom.

I'm curious as to how any Sewol victims could have been saved in Park's bedroom. Nevertheless, miracles do happen, and perhaps the headline was right in saying "Seven-hour mystery about Park, Sewol solved," for mysteries do often imply some metaphysique!

But not here, not this time . . .

Censorship of State . . .

Nineteenth-Century French Engraving Protests Censorship

The Censor with his Scissors is on the Left

Library of Congress

New York TImes

Alberto Manguel has written a fascinating article reviewing Robert Darnton's Censors at Work (NYT, November 7, 2014), for Darnton shows that censors often acted as copy editors - or even as literary critics!

[W]hat exactly is censorship? This is the question with which Robert Darnton, the foremost historian of the book and the art of reading, begins his enthralling new volume . . . . Most historians of censorship, like Fernando Báez in his excellent "A Universal History of the Destruction of Books," assume that the censor's task has always been to forbid and destroy. Darnton shows that this is not the case . . . . He begins by looking at a book printed in Paris in 1722 that carries the "approbation and privilege of the king." These approbations, as Darnton notes, qualify as censorship because they were "delivered by royal censors" . . . . [R]ather than what modern readers would expect from a censoring hand, they are something closer to our present-day blurbs. One of these censors, a professor at the Sorbonne, notes: "I had pleasure in reading it; it is full of fascinating things." Another, a theologian, remarks with obvious delight that a book inspired "that sweet but avid curiosity that makes us want to continue further." As Darnton makes clear, censorship under the Bourbon monarchy was not a system of limitations; it was a way of channeling the power of print through the figure of the king and his representatives, asserting royal authority over everything, even the word. Royal censors were not mainly on the outlook for subversive voices: instead, they worked like copy editors, concerned with matters of style, grammar, readability and originality of thought, even going so far as correcting spelling and redoing math. A book approved by the king should not be badly written . . . . [C]ensorship in 18th-­century France manifested itself primarily as a sort of literary criticism.

Now, I've got it, the reason for my novella's modest sales - I lack a censor! Down with the corrupt novella titled The Bottomless Bottle of Beer! Bring on the censors!

Please . . .

"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour"

Edward Sorel, John Milton

Tempted by Censorship?

(The New Yorker, June 2, 2008)

I've finished reading Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept and am reflecting upon the implications of what he describes, especially the meekness with which too many Europeans, after the assassinations of such outspoken critics of Islamism as Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn, have accepted restrictions on their freedom to voice their opinions:

Across Western Europe . . . authorities were cracking down on free speech -- or trying to. Meanwhile, many artists, writers, and "cultural workers" were practicing pragmatic self-censorship -- taking down "offensive" artworks, cancelling screenings of "offensive" movies, thinking "offensive" thoughts but not daring to voice them. (While Europe Slept, page 216)

The offensive short film, Submission, written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and produced by Theo van Gogh -- and which had so enraged Mohammad Bouyeri that he had murdered van Gogh -- proved too controversial for the art world:

In February 2005, a scheduled screening of Submission at the Rotterdam International Film Festival was canceled by its producer, Gijs van de Westelaken . . . . The festival's theme, ironically, was "censored films"; in place of Submission, the festival audience saw two movies sympathetic to suicide bombers. (While Europe Slept, page 216)

As Bawer notes, "'Provocative'' art was all right, in short, so long as it didn't actually provoke anybody" (page 217).

When I consider our current need for a vigorous defense of free speech, I think of the line by William Wordsworth concerning John Milton: "Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour":

London, 1802

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

I like those lines "Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." Milton certainly defended free speech with great rhetorical power in an argument "For the Liberty of Unlicen'd Printing" expressed in his essay Areopagitica. This work was in direct response to the the Puritan Parliament's Licensing Order of 1643, which reinstated the pre-publication censorship of earlier royal and ecclesiastical censors.

At one point, Milton -- who evidently considers the Qur'an fictitious -- implies that "Alcoran" can only be protected by Muslims through restrictions on expression:

There is yet behind of what I purpos'd to lay open, the incredible losse, and detriment that this plot of licencing puts us to, more then if som enemy at sea should stop up all our hav'ns and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the importation of our richest Marchandize, Truth: nay it was first establisht and put in practice by Antichristian malice and mystery on set purpose to extinguish, if it were possible, the light of Reformation, and to settle falshood; little differing from that policie wherewith the Turk upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibition of Printing. 'Tis not deny'd, but gladly confest, we are to send our thanks and vows to heav'n louder then most of Nations, for that great measure of truth which we enjoy, especially in those main points between us and the Pope, with his appertinences the Prelats: but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attain'd the utmost prospect of reformation, that the mortall glasse wherein we contemplate, can shew us, till we come to beatific vision, that man by this very opinion declares, that he is yet farre short of Truth. (Areopagitica, paragraph 19)

This is a dense passage, but I think that we can all understand Milton's basic point, namely, that preventing free speech -- whether by Catholics, Protestants, or Muslims -- entails restrictions on truth, and that, Milton implies, would be to settle on falsehood.

Forthrightness demands that I acknowledge that Milton himself placed some restrictions on free expression, more than I would wish to see.

In that, one might say that even Milton fell tempted by censorship.

Blogspot Blocked in Korea?

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Blogspot Censored in Korea?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday around noon, I lost access to my blog, and after some hours of this inability to log on to Gypsy Scholar, I contacted Kevin 'Gargantua' Kim over at Big Hominid's Hairy Chasms and asked him about his Blogspot website:

Are you having problems accessing Blogspot this afternoon (November 1)?

Kevin informed me of his worst suspicions:

Yes, I am. Jenn of I Got 2 Shoes emailed w/the same question, so I'm guessing we're not alone. I'll ask you what I asked her: ROK govt blockage? Scheduled maintenance? Something else?

The Korean government has at times blocked entire domains to restrict access to websites that it would prefer that Koreans not visit. A few years back, when the unfortunate Kim Sun-il was beheaded in Iraq by the Islamist group Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'l Jihad ("Group of Monotheism and Jihad"), the Korean government blocked many internet domains to shut off access to online videos of the beheading. But there's nothing like that currently going on that would motivate the government to block Blogspot, so I replied to Kevin's message:

Blockage is always my first paranoid thought, but why today?

Kevin hasn't yet replied to that, but he helpfully supplied a means of circumventing the blockage:

We're like a sad bunch of junkies, deprived of our drugs and jonesing. Heh.

OK, I went through Unipeak.com, which is a proxy server, and WAS able to see my blog, which unfortunately leads me to believe that we Blogspotters are being blocked for some reason or other. That's only a hypothesis, but it's a strong one. The blogs are still online and still visible, but only if you take the back road.

To see your blog, visit Unipeak.com scroll down to the URL window, and type your blog's URL starting with "http."

More info as it comes...

I'm still waiting for that 'info' and still can't imagine any plausible reason that the government might be blocking internet domains . . . though I speculated about implausible ones in my reply to Kevin's assistance:

Thanks. That helps. I just can't figure out why the Korean government would be blocking domains? Maybe just to remind us that it can? Or Roh wants to thwart any discussion of how the US helped a North Korean ship? Seems unlikely...

That story, by the way, is accessible at CNN online and would be worth blogging about if I weren't so distracted. The basic story is that Somali pirates chose the wrong Korean ship to hijack. They chose a North Korean ship, but the Norks fought back, assisted in some way by the American Navy, which is also providing medical treatment to three North Koreans wounded by the Somali pirates. Those pirates are in worse shape, however, with two dead and the remaining ones now in the hands of the North Korean crew. I wouldn't want to be one of those pirates about now, who must be currently experiencing just how radically the tables can turn...

By the way, I was merely jesting in suggesting that the South Korean government might be trying to thwart discussion of this incident. The current Roh administration would be perfectly happy to see an improvement in relations between the United States and North Korea and would not be trying to block internet domains to prevent discussion of how the American Navy assisted a North Korean ship.

I remain baffled by the blockage but not blocked by bafflement, which I've successfully circumvented, as you can clearly see -- unless you're living in South Korea and don't know about Unipeak.com and thus aren't reading these words at all...