I don’t get it.

An article in the Chosun Ilbo says:

According to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs on Tuesday, an average of 3.34 people died in traffic accidents per every 10,000 cars in Korea in 2006, more than double the OECD average of 1.53. Korea's figure dropped slightly to 3.08 last year, but it still remains high.

What I don’t get is this obsession to compare things like road safety between OECD countries. What does it matter if you are a member of the OECD or not? I have been to many OECD countries and I can assure you that I have NEVER been afraid of walking on the pavement/sidewalk and have rarely been even remotely afraid of crossing at the traffic light when I am allowed to walk.

In Korea people get injured on the sidewalk and a red light does not mean you have to stop at all, especially if you are a huge lorry. I would love to see where Korea features on a bigger stage. What will it look like when they do worse than most of the non-OECD countries?

Just in case you don’t know that the OECD is let me inform you. It is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organisation of thirty countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free market economy. How do your principals on politics and economics have any barring on road safety?

As a side note I find it interesting that the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs is one thing. Maritime affairs are surely big enough to be a single operation in a country almost completely surrounded by water. Maybe this is why the road safety is lagging? Also, what exactly does “Land Affairs” mean?

East Asian is as East Asian does.

I am busy watching Battlestar Galactica at home. I tend to watch shows like these while doing other things at home, so I actually go thought a season quite quickly.

The other day I was watching episode 4 of season one. There was one guy whom I though was East Asian looking, but I wasn’t paying much attention and they weren’t showing him clearly. The group of new pilots was sitting in a lecture hall and this guy was playing with his pen in a way I have only seen East Asian people do. They do this thing where they swing the pen around their thumb in a horizontal arch. I have not been able to do it myself, but I have not tried very hard either. Maybe with a bit of effort I can lean to do it as well as this woman.

The first time I ever noticed it was when I was studying with a South African of Chinese decent. I thought it was quite interesting and watched him for a while. Every time I saw it since then it was an East Asian person, and now that I am in Korea is see my students do it all the time.

What exactly am I trying to say? Well, Inspector Gadget here knew the pilot was East Asian without having to look at his face. His hands told the story.

Where to teach English

I use a Firefox add-on called StumbleUpon. There are other services out there that do the same job, but I have never found a reason not to use this one.

The program is a way for people to rate interesting sites wen they view them and for other to then randomly view these sites, Last week I had a lot of free time and I was clicking that Stumble button often. I noticed that many sites use Google Adds. On this particular site Google displayed these adds:

Look at the second advert.

*****

As julle nog nie StumbleUpon it probeer het nie moet julle dit regtig oorweeg. Ek dink mens kan dit aan Interner Explorer ook heg, maar ek kan nie sien hoekom mens IE wil gebruik nie.