One of the many reasons America is the greatest country on Earth and European nations are not is that Americans don’t have to eat horsemeat lasagna.No, our frozen lasagna generally contains beef, which differs from horsemeat in many ways, such as horsemeat is said to be sweeter than beef, and usually leaner, too, meaning it has about half the calories. On the other hand, Mr. Ed and Seabiscuit were not beef cattle, if you get my drift.Europe has been aghast and agog since horse DNA was found last

PARIS ― U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced last week that the Pentagon has created a new military award for keyboard cyber-warriors and drone joystick jockeys.The Distinguished Warfare Medal will recognize those whose ability to incinerate a designated target from the comfort of an office chair wasn’t prohibitively affected by a jumpy trigger finger on the joystick from a mid-shift java jolt. Or, as Panetta put it: “The medal provides distinct, department-wide recognition for the extr

As a “vertical” change of government is now taking place in Korea with power being transferred within the same party, change of policies cannot be too phenomenal. The eyes and ears of the nation are drawn to the names of people who will lead the country together with the new president.The transition period is a great time for voyeurism. All sorts of personal matters of the appointees are exposed not only to the National Assemblymen in confirmation hearings but for the whole nation anxious to mak

When President-elect Park Geun-hye nominated Hyun Oh-seok, president of the Korea Development Institute, for the post of finance minister and deputy prime minister for the economy, she signaled that the incoming government would pursue pro-growth policies.During the campaign period, Park’s two main themes were economic democratization and welfare expansion. She did not view economic growth as a top policy priority ― so much so that she did not even suggest a specific growth target that her gover

What should South Korea and China do if an emergency occurs in North Korea? This question may seem moot at this moment, as the regime in Pyongyang shows little sign of instability and, more importantly, China continues to patronize its isolated and impoverished ally.Yet China’s support for the North should not be taken for granted. Beijing’s policy toward the anachronistic regime can be adjusted if its strategic calculus changes due to a shift in the security dynamics in the region.President Lee

Few news items over the past year had more entertainment value than one concerning the Onion and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was funny enough that the faux-news website named the double-chinned Kim the sexiest man of 2012. More entertaining still was that the People’s Daily, the stern mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, fell for it. Last week, another joke came at China’s expense, one straight from Kim. His nuclear test left his economic benefactors in Beijing flustered and the world

Evolution does not take place only in nature. Nor is it just confined to human societies. Evolution also takes place in words and their meaning, in particular when we attempt to apply all kinds of noble covenants ― whether constitutions, laws or international agreements ― to specific situations at hand. Once codified, texts are set in stone, but the world we live in continues to change. A critical question then is, should words in these texts be understood as they were agreed upon at the time of

The smallest and most fundamental form of government is the family and it is falling apart. Americans across the political spectrum are beginning to recognize it.President Obama, in this year’s State of the Union address, said he wanted to work to “strengthen families by removing the financial deterrents to marriage for low-income couples, and doing more to encourage fatherhood ― because what makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.”He is exact

Reviving the American economy means deepening efforts to broaden access to education and improve our public schools.President Obama’s blueprint for a second term in office, outlined in his State of the Union address Tuesday, connects a revamped educational system with a strong economy.Obama proposes expanding federal support for preschool to all 4-year-olds from moderate- and low-income families. The idea is supported by considerable research showing quality early learning boosts graduation rate

Ronald Dworkin, a professor at New York University and the University of Oxford who died this week, was one of the most important legal philosophers of the last 100 years. He may well head the list. He made countless enduring contributions to philosophy and legal theory. Among his greatest is a distinctive answer to a longstanding question: Do judges find law, or do they make it? His answer is a huge improvement over the crude alternatives that dominate public debates. Consider a question about

In the past, Koreans were generally known as a humorless, stern people who seldom smiled or joked. In fact, Koreans traditionally do not respect jokesters who tell funny stories or pull pranks. Koreans call a humorous man “a man without substance” or “a silly talker,” and tend to dismiss such individuals. Indeed, we think that humor should be reserved for comedians and clowns, not men of dignity and prudence. Thirty years ago, when I returned from the States and began teaching at Seoul National

Those who have been dispirited by a long spell of winter cold may eagerly wait for an early arrival of spring ― a season for rebirth and happiness. The English poet Percy Besshe Shelley sounds impatient for its arrival when he says in his poem, “Ode to the West Wind,” that “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” But at this time of the year, there should be quite a few who would feel as dejected as Ernest Hemingway did when he wrote: “When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it wa

Two days after Lee Myung-bak was sworn in as president on Feb. 25, 2008, the Cabinet was called into a weekly session. But none of Lee’s appointees for the Cabinet posts had been approved by the National Assembly. As a stopgap measure, the Cabinet members of the previous administration were summoned to the session.The second conference, held on March 3, was presided over by Han Seung-soo, Lee’s first prime minister, whose appointment had been approved on Feb. 29. But the meeting was still abnorm

Sri Lanka was for decades an example of how sectarian conflict can wreck an otherwise fortunate country. It has had three years to show how devolving power to an ethnic minority can bring about lasting peace. Now it looks as if the opportunity will be lost. Sri Lanka paid an enormous price to bring 26 years of civil war to an end. An estimated 40,000 people died in the last months of fighting in 2009, bringing the conflict’s final toll to more than 100,000. This includes a sitting president, Ran

MILAN ― A winter election is not to Italian tastes. But, on Feb. 24-25, up to 50 million voters will go to the polls to elect a new parliament, delivering Italy’s 62nd government in the last 65 years.Since November 2011, Italy has been led not by a politician, but by an academic economist and a former European Union commissioner, Mario Monti. His emergency technocratic government, supported by the left and right, was a masterstroke of outgoing President Giorgio Napolitano.Napolitano’s move was c

Singaporeans are raring to do something extraordinary: protest. That might not seem like a big deal with the Arab Spring uprisings; Chinese journalists taking to the streets; and thousands of typically docile Japanese rallying against government policies. But tropical Singapore is the land of quiet brooding, where mass street demonstrations are as common as snowstorms. What has people so riled up? Well, people. The impetus for the Feb. 16 march is a report that the tiny island’s population may r

North Korea has conducted its anticipated nuclear test. Unfortunately, our deterrent policy failed again. It was more than a simple provocation. The test should be seen as a diplomatic and military challenge targeting new leaders in Korea, China and Japan, and the second Obama administration. Now it is time to decide how to respond, taking into account the possibility that North Korea could take further actions after our response. While considering appropriate sanctions, we need to realize that

NEW DELHI ― A half-century before the invention of e-mail, T. S. Eliot asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” If he were alive today, contemplating an electronic inbox on a flickering computer, he might well have added, “Where is the information that has been lost in trivia?”It is one of the paradoxes of our times that inventions meant to make our lives easier inevitably end up slowing us down. When e-mail first entered my life

It’s debatable whether President Barack Obama can revive U.S. manufacturing, as he proposed in his State of the Union address. It isn’t debatable whether he should try. The U.S. can already go toe-to-toe with (or beat) other countries on energy costs, workforce quality, supply networks and legal rights ― even if it can’t (and shouldn’t) compete over wages and environmental controls. If Congress cherry-picked just a handful of ideas from Obama’s long list of proposals, the U.S. could jump the com

State of the Union addresses are traditionally laundry lists of policy proposals. U.S. President Barack Obama’s this week started that way, but it ended as the most emotional speech before a joint session of Congress in modern memory. The theatrics of the event also introduced a new approach to framing the public debate that could yield unexpected victories for the president in the next year or two. Obama made liberal use of what in Washington are sometimes called “Skutniks.” This is a reference