Steve Cotler Steve Cotler

Category: Politics

North Korean Unicorns: Lost in Translation?

— 3:31 pm · Comments Off on North Korean Unicorns: Lost in Translation?

Last week, the official North Korean news agency (KNCA) released a report stating: “Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom (B.C. 277-A.D. 668).” The Western press took this as another in the continuing series of North Korea’s inability to stay in  touch with reality. Example: in 1994, a state-issued news story reported departed leader Kim Jong Il shot 38 under par on the 7,700-yard Pyongyang Golf Course!

Unicorns are real? Once again the world laughs at North Korea.

I am no apologist for their nonsense. But did the press get the unicorn story right? Was it state-sanctioned prevarication or trigger-happy mistranslation? Continue reading “North Korean Unicorns: Lost in Translation?” →

Dixville Notch: The First Voters

— 9:49 am · One comment

New Hampshire has held the first-in-the-nation presidential primaries since 1920. With the first presidential “beauty contest” in 1952, our citizens have personally met the candidates and by popular ballot have declared their preference for their party’s nominee. Since 1960, Dixville has been the first community in the state and country to cast its handful of votes in national elections. On election eve 100% of the eligible voters gather in the Ballot Room of The BALSAMS. At midnight polls open and a few minutes later promptly close. The results are broadcast around the world.

—Roadside marker text…NH Route 26

It is both a privilege and a responsibility to vote. The few citizens of Dixville Notch, NH, take their franchise seriously and have gained notoriety therefrom. So, this year…will it be…”How goes Dixville Notch, so goes the nation”?

Continue reading “Dixville Notch: The First Voters” →

Too Big to Fail? Or Too Big to Exist? [Redux]

— 12:43 pm · One comment

In light of the recent JPMorgan Chase $3B trading loss and the unrestrained chaos that was the Facebook IPO, I am republishing a blog post from 3/7/09. Over three years have passed…and it appears no lessons have been learned. What was trenchant then is just as relevant today.

*     *     *     *     *

AIG is saved once, and then resuscitated again, because it is judged “too big to fail.” Billions are pumped into General Motors because it also is “too big to fail.”

I say step back and look at what “too big to fail” should have suggested long before the current financial cliff edge was reached: If it is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

Capitalism rewards successful innovation and efficiency; saving what has rotted is antithetical. I realize, of course, that by the time AIG was infused, there may have been no choice. GM, on the other hand, Continue reading “Too Big to Fail? Or Too Big to Exist? [Redux]” →

The Market Falls–Then and Now

— 4:13 pm · Comments Off on The Market Falls–Then and Now

I glance at the headline of an old newspaper that had been used to insulate one of the old log cabins that make up the museum in Frisco, CO.

“Bankers Blame Tax Laws for Securities Drop” (The Denver Post…November 7, 1937).

The Great Depression had been ongoing for over eight years.

Yesterday the Dow fell over 500 points. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sigh…

Clarence Darrow and Hawaii’s Massie Affair

— 10:46 am · View all 2 comments

A letter I wrote to The New Yorker about Hawaii’s infamous Massie Affair, a sordid episode in American race relations, was printed in the June 27, 2011, issue and is at the bottom of this page.

I wrote the letter because: (a) I had recently read three thought-provoking books about racism in America during the early years of the 20th century and (b) the magazine’s profile of Clarence Darrow overlooked an important and defining episode that checkered the man’s career.

The first book, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley, deals with Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy Continue reading “Clarence Darrow and Hawaii’s Massie Affair” →

Death of Bin Laden

— 11:43 pm · One comment

Osama Bin Laden is dead, but this is not a time for exultation.

Crowds of mostly young people outside the White House are celebrating. Surely there is justification for bringing justice down upon terrorists. His death will undoubtedly change the nature of the world conflict for which 9/11 remains the signature event. But the hooting and chanting is unsettling and unthinking. It is as if those celebrants had just watched a team win a sporting event.

Celebrating at V-J Day marked the end of World War II. Bin Laden’s death is not an end. It is a sober reminder that many have died, and many more will die.

Steve with students at an author event

Posts by Month

Categories

Tags

AAUW Abraham Lincoln Altarock Energy Argosy Music Barack Obama Bernard Madoff Capitalism Cheesie Mack Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything Connecticut Dennis Hopper EGS England Enhanced Geothermal Systems evolution Final Four Florida George W. Bush Harvard Harvard Business School HEARTWOOD Hy Zaret It Could Be a Wonderful World Lake County Lincoln Little Songs on Big Subjects Lou singer Madoff Martin Luther King MLK New York Times Obama Oxnard Pobba Prius racism SSP st. croix Summer Science Program The Geysers The Jesters Tolerance Traveling Broadens One wine country Wyoming