Self-Defeating Deportations

Federal agents detain Korean workers in Georgia (Fox News)

While the majority of Americans supports border control in some form, the manner in which the policy is executed threatens to erode that support. Alleged deportation abuses of migrants from south of the border gets all the (negative) publicity, but last week's actions against South Korean workers at a battery plant in Georgia is an unforced error by the Administration.

More than 300 South Korean workers were sent back to South Korea on Thursday after being arrested in an immigration raid on a battery factory next to the Hyundai plant. “This could significantly impact future direct investment in the U.S.,” [President Lee Jae Myung] said at a news conference. South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making new investments in the U.S. if their workers are liable to end up in detention facilities.

Companies often bring in skilled workers to get factories up and running and to train local staff. “It’s not like these are long-term workers,” Mr. Lee continued. “When you build a facility or install equipment at a plant, you need technicians, but the U.S. doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work.”

U.S. policies can conflict with each other: 1) peaceful containment of China requires strengthening relations with Asian countries like South Korea and india; 2) building up American manufacturing involves penalizing potential and actual allies with tariffs. Deporting South Korean workers when there are not enough skilled Americans to do the work is not only self-defeating but sours a relationship with an important ally.

Ordering the Georgia plant to hire American workers when there aren't any seems as foolish as California shutting down gasoline refineries and fossil-fuel energy plants before alternative-energy replacements are on line.

The Gru Clue

Cardboard cutout of Gru (Advanced Graphics)

North Korean scammers have infiltrated the American work force. One of the crooks' distinguishing features is a fondness for the fictional "Despicable Me" villain Gru.

The FBI believes thousands of North Koreans have infiltrated the U.S. workforce by assuming the identities of Americans to secure remote jobs. Many of them, investigators have found, are bound by a few defining characteristics: total devotion to Dear Leader Kim Jong Un, a penchant for stealing cryptocurrency and an obsession with Minions, the cuddly agents of evil from “Despicable Me.”

The North Koreans’ love of the animated movie franchise has become a recurring, if slightly baffling, joke among the security researchers who investigate them.

Many of these fake workers use Minions and other “Despicable Me” characters in social-media profiles and email addresses. Some investigators initially thought their use of “Gru” was a reference to Russia’s famed GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Instead it was a tribute to the Minions overlord, Felonious Gru Sr., the Steve Carell-voiced animated character who tries to steal the moon.

My 2025 bingo card didn't have the Gru clue as a scam detector.

Great American Success Story

(Photo: NASA/Zuma Press/WSJ)

41-year-old Jonny Kim is the epitome of the Great American success story. Born in Los Angeles to South Korean immigrants, he has been embraced by Asian-Americans, who also dread comparisons with him by their parents. [bold added]

In half a lifetime, Jonny Kim has achieved the American dream three times over. He was a Navy SEAL. Then he graduated from Harvard Medical School. And on Tuesday, he blasted off as part of his latest act: astronaut.

When novelist Wesley Chu first learned about Kim, a 41-year-old father of three who is also a Navy pilot, his first reaction was awe.

His second: “Thank God my mom is not friends with his mom.”

After word of his feats spread, Kim became a global source of inspiration. And yet, to many of the same people who glance at his résumé and can’t help but compare it to theirs, he has also conjured up a bit of another feeling.

Dismay.

This has been especially true in the Asian-American community, where Kim, the son of South Korean immigrants, has been simultaneously lauded as a hero—and feared, only half-jokingly, as “every Asian kid’s worst nightmare.”

The worry: No matter what they achieve, their high-demanding immigrant parents will say Jonny Kim already did that—only better. “We accomplished all this stuff, but really, it’s what he did that matters,” Chu said.

Kim became an internet meme among Asian Americans, who frequently take to social media to express gratitude that he’s not a relative. NASA’s social-media posts about Kim are flooded with comments expressing similar sentiments. “As a fellow Asian, I hope my parents do not get to read this. But, safe journey my man,” one wrote.

His childhood was marked by tragedy:

It all started with trauma during his childhood in Los Angeles. Kim said he witnessed his father, who he described as alcoholic and abusive, pull a gun on their family. Police shot his father dead in their attic.

His desire to physically protect his mother and brother led him to become a Navy SEAL. But an Ultimate Frisbee ankle injury delayed his plan to join the Navy as an operations specialist. When he recovered, a recruiter steered him toward becoming a medic.

In 2005, Kim joined SEAL Team Three, serving as a medic and sniper, among other roles. He earned a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for treating wounded comrades during two tours in Iraq, an experience that motivated him to attend medical school.

No matter how successful, we eventually meet someone who is better than we are in our field of endeavor. (My revelation occurred in college.) Jonny Kim has yet to meet that person.

I Wonder if the Bed Vibrates

Part of the $4,500 package (WSJ)

Here's another Korean activity that might catch on internationally--"hotel" wedding proposals that cost thousands of dollars, not including the ring: [bold added]

29-year-old office worker [Oh Hae-rim] did have her heart set on one luxury: a night at a swanky hotel where her future husband would pop the question...

“Everyone prefers a hotel proposal,” Oh said. “It’s every woman’s dream.”

Oh’s boyfriend chose Signiel Seoul, a luxury hotel, which sells an “Eternal Promise” package with flower decorations and Champagne that starts at $1,200 a night. She snapped a photo of the rose petals and candles that her boyfriend prepared, and posed in front of “Marry Me” letter balloons holding a bouquet of flowers. She placed a blue Tiffany shopping bag containing a necklace next to her in the photo. Oh, for her part, gave her intended a fancy watch.

More than 40% of South Korean women want their wedding proposals to happen at a hotel, according to a recent poll by a local matchmaker. More than a third of men, in the same survey, cite “financial burden” for not wanting to propose.

Young husbands-to-be, who likely don't have a lot of won lying around, are usually the ones who pay for the proposal:

Kim Jae-hyun was stunned when his girlfriend showed him a photo of a Chanel handbag her friend received when getting proposed to at a hotel. “I started calculating how much it would all cost in my head,” he said—probably at least $3,000.

Over drinks, Kim and his friends, some married, others not, discussed whether they could afford a Chanel bag, and if it was really necessary for a proposal. His single friends thought a sincere expression of love before asking would be enough. His married friends disagreed, arguing Kim might hear about his lack of proposal panache the rest of his life.

He originally planned to propose this summer. But now he has decided to wait until the end of the year. “It will give me some time to save up,” Kim said.

Kim, listen to your married friends and spend the money. You might live another 60 years, and most assuredly you will get more than $50 of grief each year if you didn't make her proposal dream come true.

Best wishes, by the way.

Measure Twice, Cut Once and Quickly

Prof. Huggy Rao

Looking good on television or streaming video is a key component of leadership in the modern age. Unfortunately, some people may make the mistake of ignoring other qualities.

Knowledge of specific details and the ability to listen, communicate clearly, work tirelessly, and set a good example are still equally, perhaps more important.

Stanford Business School professor Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao cites the example of a military leader not well-known to the younger generation:

(Arlington Cemetery website)

I think the best military leader America ever had was Matthew Ridgway. Ridgway was a brigadier general during World War II.

He replaced Douglas MacArthur on the Korean operation. He’d never fought in Asia, never led a land battle. He had no idea about Korea.

As soon as he took charge, he spent the first couple of days flying around Korea. He took the navigator’s seat. They flew all over, noting rivers, lakes, mountains.

Once he understood the geography and topography of Korea, he met regimental commanders and would ask them a series of questions to assess their leadership readiness. Often, his first questions had to do with geography. Where’s the nearest river? How deep is it? If the commander wasn’t able to answer, he was fired instantly because he was going to endanger their troops. That is wartime leadership.

Despite the pressure, Matthew Ridgway took some time figuring out what to do. Once he knew, he didn't hesitate to act.

A Dangerous Thing

At HNL baggage claim, not a mask in sight

Departing from San Francisco yesterday, I noticed that about 10% of the people in the terminal were wearing masks. Those so outfitted were all from Asia.

No one in Honolulu was masked. Possible explanations:

Travelers were not afraid of the coronavirus, since the number of cases in the U.S. is very small and traceable to people who've traveled to China.

They have trust in the health and immigration authorities to ring-fence the contagion.

They're stupid and unaware of the magnitude of the problem.

They're smart and have read the articles on the limited effectiveness of masks.

An old truth: if one has no knowledge or a lot of knowledge, one does not panic. If one has a little knowledge, well,...

South Korea and Japan Should Just Move On

The U.S.-China "trade war" gets all the headlines, but there's budding conflict between two of the world's most important economies and American allies. South Korea's resentments over its Japanese colonization from 1905 to 1945 had gradually subsided over time--though Japan's whitewashing of its World War II history remains a sore point--but exploded anew over policy toward North Korea.

South Korean business owners trash
Japanese logos. (Ahn Young-Joon--AP)

The new face-off in the conflict between the two U.S. allies started July 1 when Japan slapped export restrictions on South Korea, the latest move in a long-running feud between the governments of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Moon Jae-in over World War II history. The new curbs slow shipments of three materials essential for semiconductors and flexible displays, two drivers of Seoul’s export-heavy economy.

Tokyo officials have suggested the moves are justified for national-security reasons, accusing South Korean of not doing enough to ensure Japanese-produced chemicals and equipment can’t be shipped on to help rogue nations build weapons. One of Mr. Abe’s closest aides named North Korea as a possible destination.

Seoul has denied the suggestion. North Korea slammed Japan’s trade policy in a state-media report Thursday. “This is a cunning artifice to justify the unreasonable economic retaliation by disguising it as an ‘issue related to national security,’ ” the North’s state media said of Japan’s export restrictions.

Relations are souring but haven't reached the point where the U.S. will step in:

The U.S. has kept relatively quiet on the matter. But on a visit to Seoul on Wednesday, David Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asian affairs, said Washington would “do what it can” to help patch up the frayed relationship between its two allies.

From the American vantage point South Korea and Japan's differences are minor compared to their common geopolitical interests. Just like Americans do with ancient grievances, both parties should look past the sins that no one alive is responsible for and move on.

Not Spectacular, But Better Than His Predecessors

(White House photo via WSJ)

President Trump's foreign policy is of a piece with the man; it's unpredictable. While generally a bad thing--both friend and foe can make catastrophic misjudgments--unpredictability can be effective. WSJ's Gerard Baker:

American strategy these days may best be characterized as something of a random walk.

Traveling in Asia and Europe last month, I spoke to U.S. allies and strategic competitors alike about Trumpian foreign policy. They differed on many topics, but the one thing they all agreed on was that we really don’t know what the president is going to do next.

Constructive ambiguity or strategic confusion? Who knows?

Whenever I enter the rabbit hole of a "conversation" (more like a harangue) about the President, I make an old-school argument: watch what he does, not what he says.

Last week, Mr. Trump took further historic steps, literally, toward an utterly improbable detente with North Korea. Last month, he demurred when presented with a limited and justifiable retaliatory strike against Iran for shooting down a U.S. reconnaissance drone over the Gulf because, he said, he was concerned about disproportionate loss of life. While he continues to pursue a trade war with China, he seems, if anything, to be happier when—as at last week’s G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan—he is de-escalating tensions with Xi Jinping.

Blustering/threatening, then retreating at the 11th hour, is the Trumpian style. It seems to be working, not spectacularly but better than his predecessors.

Dropped From Sight

In this week's version of "it's the end of America as we know it" President Trump will soon nominate another Supreme Court Justice. Anthony Kennedy retired last week, kicking off a nomination firestorm that will dominate headlines into fall.

For perspective I pulled up the 2018 Time covers to see if the overturning of Roe v. Wade (a threatened occurrence, BTW, with every Supreme Court nomination by a Republican President since 1987) would be more outrageous than any of the other things that Donald J. Trump was responsible for this year.

There were several weeks of #MeToo coverage that recounted numerous incidents of sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault that predated not only President Trump but also the 21st century. Yes, let's shame or prosecute the people responsible, but at least give President Trump indirect credit. #MeToo would never have happened under President Hillary Clinton, with big-time supporter Harvey Weinstein yukking it up with the Big He in the Lincoln bedroom.

Then there are President Trump's inflammatory speeches and tweets directed at Kim Jong Un. Time's February mushroom cloud (which indeed would have been worse than anything going on with the Supreme Court) was superseded by the June cover that showed the two leaders talking amiably.

And what happened to those determined, angry kids who want gun restrictions? I agree that stopping school shootings has to be a national priority. Despite the polarization, surely we can reach common ground on mental illness, rapid-fire technology, and background checks. Or was it all a voter registration drive for Democrats?

Then there are the pictures of border families and crying kids who seem to elicit powerful emotions from people on all sides of the illegal immigration issue. Here's where over two decades of screening grant requests has hardened my heart. Everyone who wants money knows that crying babies trump nearly all rational consideration. OK, reunite the border families, but you still have to deliberate over the adults, some of whom are using their children to catch a break. Note: in California alone there are over 50,000 children separated from their parents by Child Protective Services, undoubtedly for good reason. Over 20,000 are age 5 or younger; I'll bet some of them cried when they were taken away, but their pictures aren't on the cover of Time. I do get it, CPS good, border patrol bad. Indeed, I have to work on my hardened heart.

Other observations: 1) the portraits of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a sexual-predator felon are both cast in shadow. I wonder what Time's editorial position is on these guys. 2) Pictures or representations of President Trump appear on four covers, only one of which is non-hostile. If Time were a person, I'd advise it to get therapy for its obsession. 3) What happened to Russia-Russia-Russia and the anytime-now impeachment of Donald Trump? 4) What happened to the tariff wars that will plunge the world into the next Great Depression? (I'm actually worried about this one and wonder why they're not using this to undermine the President's support from business.)

Now that I've done the half-year in review I feel a lot better. These "crises" must not have been so important after all because they've dropped from sight.

The Six Methods

The wrecking-ball cover shows the
Economist's opinion of Mr. Trump's
foreign policy

Even more interesting--to this observer--than the President's objectives in foreign policy is how he conducts it . The WSJ has discerned six principles:

Method 1: “I Alone Can Fix It”
on May 8, 2018, he sat alone at a small wooden desk in the White House basement...as he dramatically signed a stack of documents withdrawing America from the seven-nation deal aimed at constraining Iran’s nuclear program.

Method 2: Soften Up the Opposition and Keep it Off Balance
The President...[called] Mr. Kim “rocket man” on a “suicide mission”....over the Easter weekend, the president switched tactics and surprised top advisers by urging restraint.

Method 3: Set Deadlines—Real or Imagined—to Create Pressure
No one loves negotiating against deadlines more than Mr. Trump, who proudly uses them as weapons....Mr. Trump also likes to create deadlines with consequences to prevent others from running out the clock...It also shows his deadlines aren’t bluffs, said Lawrence Kudlow, director of the president’s economic council. “The point is, when the president says something, believe it,” he said.

Method 4: Don’t Calm the Waters—Roil Them
He looks skeptically at advice from policy experts, previous administration officials and global allies—the “geniuses,” as Mr. Trump contemptuously privately calls them—which means the U.S. is often churning foreign policy waters instead of calming them.

Method 5: Make it Personal
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April 2017, the president shattered the careful choreography—something that took weeks of international negotiations—surprising the Chinese by immediately seeking a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Xi.

Method 6: Use “Maximum Pressure” and Be Prepared to Walk Away
A signature Trump tactic is to respond to every attack with a stronger counterstrike. When Beijing threatened to match his tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, he threatened to put tariffs on $100 billion...When North Korea increased missile tests, he vowed to respond with “fire and fury.”

As with any new strategies, once opponents study them they will be better prepared next time. For example, heads of state will now practice for personal negotiations, sans staff, in case Mr. Trump wants to take a one-on-one walk in the woods.

We have yet to see whether any of these unconventional methods will be successful, but the ride will surely be exciting.

The Economist: Korean Peace Will Be Kim's Doing

Peace is threatening to break out on the Korean peninsula, and the Economist credits....Kim Jong Un. [Bold added for laudatory phrases]

Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in
(South China Morning Post)

Even six months ago, no one imagined Mr Kim capable of leading a diplomatic dance that has drawn in not just South Korea but America and China. He is proving to be an adept young dictator....

Yet right after the test, and little remarked, Mr Kim declared the fulfilment of a sacred national goal, the completion of a “state nuclear force”. The flurry of launches suddenly ceased. Mr Trump claims that his sanctions and threats brought Mr Kim to the table. But since that declaration it is Mr Kim who has set the diplomatic tempo and selected the mood music—literally so, when he invited K-pop bands from South Korea to Pyongyang, his capital...

Given such canniness, a reassessment of the rest of Mr Kim’s rule is overdue....Mr Kim, says Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul, is a deft dictator: “smart, calculating and cruel—yet not sadistic for the hell of it.” (That must be scant comfort for all the innocent prisoners being beaten with hammers in his gulag.)...

he needs the summits, and to keep Mr Moon, Mr Trump and Mr Xi dancing. It is unclear how the dance will end. But what is certain is that he will have rehearsed the steps more carefully than they have. After all, Mr Kim has more at stake.

He executed his girlfriend by machine gun in 2013.
That Kim!

The Economist contends that Mr. Kim had been planning rapprochement ever since he came to power in 2011. The assassinations and purges (he executed five government officials with an antiaircraft gun) were just, we suppose, necessary steps on the road to peace.

Had Barack Obama known what a good guy Kim Jong Un was, he and Secretary of State Clinton could have negotiated peace in 2013, which would probably have cinched the 2016 election for Mrs. Clinton.

Added bonus: she would have gotten a Nobel Prize, too. Coulda, woulda, shoulda....

Tariffs: Never say Never

Conventional wisdom: tariffs hurt those imposing them.

What if someone violates a written agreement? The dispute-resolution process is a matter of common sense. First, the parties should talk to each other. Perhaps one wasn't aware that it had breached the agreement, or the other mistook a permissible act for a violation. If talks fail, the lawyers get involved, with a mixture of threats and offers to renegotiate. Finally, the courts decide.

But what if there are no courts (with the authority to impose their decision)? Then the parties must come up with a solution that has a reasonable chance of being adhered to voluntarily.

Such is the situation that the United States is facing vis-à-vis China. It's very clear that China has materially violated the WTO agreement it signed 17 years ago.

What is needed is a change in Chinese behavior to conform to the rules Beijing accepted when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The most important issue is the demand that U.S. companies transfer their technology to Chinese counterparts as a condition of doing business in China. American businesses that want to produce or sell in China are often required to enter into a joint venture with a Chinese firm that then has access to U.S. technology....

The Chinese government acknowledges that WTO rules forbid making the transfer of technology a condition for access to a nation’s economy. But it argues that the practice is “voluntary” because American firms aren’t forced to do business in China—their other option is to stay out of the country. American companies and officials say it’s a form of extortion because U.S. firms should have access to the Chinese market, as they do to markets in Europe and elsewhere, without losing their intellectual property....

Other trade issues should be easy to resolve. The U.S. would like China to reduce its excess capacity in steel and other industries and to stop selling the resulting products on the global market at below cost, in violation of WTO rules. Mr. Trump’s tariffs on steel are a way of putting extra pressure on China to accelerate its reduction of excess capacity.

President Trump's imposition of tariffs and China's retaliatory response have raised the specter of a trade war that has spooked financial markets.

In high-school American history we had it drummed into our skulls that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 brought on the Great Depression. Free-trade-good-tariffs-bad is more widely accepted than motherhood and apple pie.

Questions:
1) How come the Chinese don't buy into the free-trade mantra, i.e., they are so stupid that they impose tariffs and other tariff-like barriers to imports? Don't the Chinese see that's why they [sarc!] have been so unsuccessful?
2) Assuming talks have failed to change Chinese behavior, what are steps, preferable to tariffs, that the U.S. could take?

By the way I still am hopeful that the skirmish over tariffs is part of the overall strategy to denuclearize North Korea.

Like a Fox

WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, not an anti-Trump conservative, tries to put her finger on the ambivalence that many Republicans have about their leader.

First, the positives from a Republican point of view: [bold added]

[President Trump] has established in his government a deregulatory spirit that is fair and helpful....excessive regulation, especially when it springs from ideological animus or practical ignorance, kills progress, growth, jobs, good ideas and products.

Mr. Trump has put a sober conservative on the Supreme Court, and many conservative judges on the lower courts. This provides greater balance in the judiciary. In a split country, split courts—balance—is probably the best we can do.

The economy is improving. And Mr. Trump helped pass a tax bill that was better—maybe a little, maybe a lot, but certainly better—than what it replaced.

Not bad for a first year in office!

The negatives, however, are hard to brush off:

You look at his White House and see what appears to be epic instability, mismanagement and confusion. You see his resentments and unpredictability. You used to think he’s surrounded by solid sophisticates, but they’re leaving. He’s unserious— Vladimir Putin says his missiles can get around any U.S. defense, and Mr. Trump is tweeting about Alec Baldwin. He careens around—he has big congressional meetings that are like talk shows where he’s the host, and he says things that are both soft and tough and you think Hmmm, maybe that’s a way through, but the next day it turns out it was only talk. This has been done on the Dreamers, on guns and we’ll see about tariffs. He loves chaos—he brags about this—but it isn’t strategic chaos in pursuit of ends, it’s purposeless disorder for the fun of it. We are not talking about being colorfully, craftily unpredictable, as political masters like FDR and Reagan sometimes were, but something more unfortunate, an unhinged or not-fully-hinged quality that feels like screwball tragedy.

To summarize, in 13 words, "On some level this is working. And on some level he is crazy."

The nub of her worry [bold added]:

Crazy doesn’t last. Crazy doesn’t go the distance. Crazy is an unstable element that, when let loose in an unstable environment, explodes.

I may be whistling past the graveyard, but I am not as concerned as she is. Here's an alternative narrative, some of which may be true!

A lifetime in the public eye has enabled Mr. Trump to perfect his public persona, which is the following: he's a bully; he makes impulsive decisions, and he says what's on the top of his mind without thinking of the consequences. He doesn't appreciate the seriousness with which everyone takes the words of the American President. The staff turnover indicates that people who have seen him up close for just a few months can't stand him.

Yet while the media and political opposition obsess over Russia! Russia! Russia! and the Trump insult of the day (North Korea, immigrants, s******e countries, Mexico, China, Sweden, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin, the list goes on and on and on), his Administration chugs along, ruthlessly pruning regulations, lowering taxes, and appointing judges. If the public persona were reality, very little would have been done.

The impulsive shoot-from-the-lip President has puzzlingly refrained from talking about two key longer-term projects: the counter-Mueller investigation, led by the recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions, of powerful government agencies that spied on the Trump campaign, and the slow-motion strangulation of North Korea.

Last week there was near-universal condemnation of the upcoming tariffs by allies, Republicans, Wall Street, and economics professors. A few days later, after the meeting with Kim Jong Un was announced, other experts weighed in on how our Dealmaker-in-Chief will be taken to the cleaners by the 34-year-old dictator.

Just a question, chicken littles: could these moves be related? The tariffs are clearly aimed at China, which for decades has viewed the United States as a pitiful, helpless giant in trade negotiations. The falling markets, reinforced by Mr. Trump's public persona, believe that this time the American President means business about Chinese dumping.

What if Mr. Trump is using tariffs as a bargaining chip in the North Korea negotiations? What if, in exchange for Chinese help in de-nuclearizing Korea, he relaxes or removes them? Without having tariffs in the first place the United States can't apply pressure to China, so the President took the hit now in order to strengthen his hand for the Korean talks.

Of course, what do I know? Peggy Noonan is probably right: he's crazy.

Greater Than Expected

Gloria proves that she's the monster by dancing.

The Netflix DVD had been sitting on the table since last year, so it was high time to deal with it.

The beginning of Colossal (2016) is unbelievable, even laughable. Gloria (Anne Hathaway) returns to her New England hometown after losing her job in New York. A monster appears in Seoul, South Korea and kills hundreds of people.

From news videos Gloria realizes that the monster somehow is her; it duplicates her motions exactly as she walks through the hometown park (she didn't know about the damage she was causing in Seoul). She proves to her friends that she's the monster and swears them to secrecy. And that's only the first half of the movie.

Once the preposterous premise---a small-town girl is connected to a skyscraper-sized monster in Korea---is accepted, the rest of the movie follows believably. One of her friends uses the secret to further his own ends, while Gloria is guilt-wracked over the damage she's been causing.

Despite the title, it's a "little" movie that focuses on the conflicts between these small-town characters and how they have colossal consequences halfway around the world.

Kudos also to writer-director Nacho Vigalondo for not introducing Gloria's secret to government agencies, which would have sidetracked the story. By the movie's end an explanation is provided for Gloria's super-power.

I enjoyed the movie more than expected.

The Non-Power of Words

(Jeff Koterba)

Has it really been 16 years after the worst terrorist attack in American history?

A few months after 9/11 President Bush introduced the Axis of Evil formulation in his 2002 State of the Union address:

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

By 2006 the nation had already become weary of the lack of progress. WaPo:

“Nearly five years after President Bush introduced the concept of an ‘axis of evil’ comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the administration has reached a crisis point with each nation: North Korea has claimed it conducted its first nuclear test, Iran refuses to halt its uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq appears to be tipping into a civil war 3 1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.”

Today prospects for peace are in a worse position than ever vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea, and moderately better in war-torn Iraq.