Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/elin-nordegren-hates-lindsey-vonn-so-hard/
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Monday, June 10, 2013
U.S. attorney general under pressure to open more leak inquiries
By David Ingram and Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder appears to have little choice but to launch a new round of investigations into media leaks, the very issue that consumed him for the last month and led to renewed calls for his resignation.
U.S. officials said Holder will undoubtedly be called upon to identify leakers who gave a secret court order to Britain's Guardian newspaper and a document describing surveillance methods to both the Guardian and the Washington Post.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Saturday blamed the outlets for what he called "reckless disclosures" of classified spy agency material. It was unclear on Saturday whether the National Security Agency had formally requested that the Justice Department track the leaks.
The test for Holder comes as he deals with fierce bipartisan criticism for his agency's tactics in pursuing media records in other leak investigations. President Barack Obama ordered him last month to review Justice Department procedures for handling media cases, leading Holder to conduct a series of private meetings with news executives and lawyers.
Those sessions focused on two Justice Department leak inquiries that brought an outcry after media records were seized without advance notice and one news reporter was labeled a criminal co-conspirator in documents seeking his records.
Clapper on Saturday aggressively defended secret U.S. data collection, blasting the Guardian and the Post for disclosing the highly classified spy agency project code-named PRISM.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
"It will be an interesting chance to see if the Justice Department has learned anything," said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a journalists' advocacy group.
Even after the Guardian unveiled its exclusive story on the court order, Holder was reassuring news outlets on Thursday that he would not prosecute working reporters for doing their jobs.
But the publication of NSA materials - and Clapper's strong condemnation of it - puts Holder back in the position of having to evaluate whether the leaks compromised valuable sources of information used to protect the public.
"I don't see how they couldn't pursue leak investigations in the case of the disclosures this week," said Carrie Cordero, a former Justice Department national security lawyer.
POLITICAL INSULATION
Cordero, now the director of national security studies at Georgetown University Law Center, said it would be unthinkable for prosecutors to bow to recent media criticism.
"The Justice Department is by tradition supposed to be politically insulated when it's conducting an investigation, and I don't see any reason why that would change now - as unpopular as it might be," she said.
Holder's political standing has been on a slow decline. On Friday Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia became the highest-profile Democrat to suggest he should step down.
Manchin told Bloomberg TV that even if a public official like Holder has good intentions, "if they're not being effective and they're not being received, how effective is it and how good is it for the country?"
White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett backed Holder in a separate interview on Thursday, telling The Huffington Post that Holder "will be in his position for quite a while."
Chris Harper, a journalism professor at Temple University, said Holder might need to consider handing off the leak investigations.
"It is the fox guarding the chicken house. It's time to start considering special prosecutors in these cases," Harper said.
Holder in June 2012 handed off two leak probes to the chief federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and Maryland, although both prosecutors still answer to either Holder or his politically appointed deputy, James Cole.
CHANGES SOUGHT
One change in Justice Department procedure sought by media outlets is an opportunity to contest in advance any demand for records such as telephone call lists. The Associated Press reported on May 13 that the Justice Department seized some of its phone records without giving the news agency a chance to object beforehand.
Prosecutors are trying to find out who told the AP about a foiled plot to bomb an airliner over U.S. soil.
Journalists also are pressing that they not be labeled as possible criminals, as when an FBI agent in a search warrant affidavit used the term co-conspirator to describe Fox News reporter James Rosen. Rosen, who was not prosecuted, had reported secret views of U.S. intelligence officials about North Korea.
Holder as recently as Friday continued to express displeasure at the methods his prosecutors used to pursue records from Fox News and the Associated Press, said Leslie, who with other press advocates met Holder.
"He seemed to sincerely believe that those incidents were handled in a way that he didn't like," Leslie said.
Glenn Greenwald, the lead author of the Guardian's surveillance stories, told the New York Times that he expects a U.S. investigation and upgraded the security measures on his computer in Brazil, where he lives, as a precaution.
Greenwald added on Twitter, "Dear DOJ: your bullying tactics will scare some sources, but they embolden others."
(Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/attorney-general-under-pressure-open-more-leak-inquiries-003959397.html
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Various home improvement loans available for all incomes
Here are financing options for low-income homeowners and those who want to avoid tapping into their home equity for home improvement projects.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130521/BUSINESS05/705219973
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130521/BUSINESS05/705219973
Published May 21, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Various home improvement loans available for all incomes By Pat Goudey O?Brien Purchasing a home is often cited as one of the largest ? if not the single largest ? financial transactions a consumer will make, while maintenance and improvement can also weigh in on the list of expensive propositions. As a result, most people seek loans to finance home purchases, and to make needed repairs or improvements. To secure financing for home improvement projects, the house itself may provide equity value to secure a loan or second mortgage. However, for borrowers who don?t want to tap into their equity, some lending institutions offer alternatives for home improvement financing. In addition to options like second-mortgages or home-equity lines of credit, KeyBank (NYSE: KEY) of Vermont allows qualified borrowers to acquire unsecured loans for needed repairs or improvements, said Brigitte Ritchie, director of community relations. ?The maximum [loan] amount available depends on the person?s personal credit,? Ritchie said. ?But, it?s a great way to finance repairs or improvements for people who don?t want to tap into the equity in their home.? Interest rates for unsecured loans for home improvement may be higher than those for home equity or secured lines of credit, said Ritchie, but they are often lower than credit card rates. And, while home equity loans and lines of credit may be used for things not related to the home, funds from an unsecured home improvement loan must go into the home. Philip Smith, KeyBank?s senior vice president of community banking in Vermont, said the prospect of borrowing without using equity in the home is attractive to consumers, but it may not be the best option for all homeowners, based on their personal financial profile. ?The people on my team have been trained to have a broad conversation about a borrower?s financial profile, and not rush into one type of loan or another,? Smith said. ?It really comes down to the individual?s situation.? Sometimes, consolidating debt from credit cards or other types of loans is the best option, he said, with a low-interest secured loan providing an affordable alternative. The bank analyzes the situation, looks at fixed loans versus a line of credit, and prepares a recommendation on the best product for the individual person, added Ritchie. Unsecured loans require broad documentation of the borrower?s income and debt profile, so consumers should be prepared to provide data including several years of tax returns, a balance sheet on income and financial obligations, and assets and liabilities, said Ritchie and Smith. For the self-employed or business owner, additional information on the business will be required. ?The most important advice I can give is to sit with your banker, describe the particulars of your situation, your financial status, and your project plans,? Smith said. ?Have that larger, holistic conversation about where you are and where you want to be.? For moderate- and lower-income homeowners, financing options may be available through NeighborWorks Alliance of Vermont, which has home ownership centers in St. Albans, Burlington, Barre, Lyndonville, West Rutland, Springfield, and Brattleboro. The Green Mountain Loan Fund, which offers rehabilitation and repair loans through the Central Vermont Community Land Trust (CVCLT), is associated with the NeighborWorks Alliance center in Barre, which serves Washington, Lamoille, and Orange counties. The home ownership center provides extensive services to moderate- and low-income homeowners, including debt counseling and project financing, Dupuis noted. The agency also offers a home repair and rehabilitation program that sends a rehabilitation specialist out to the home, at no cost to the homeowner, to write job specifications for things like roof repair, structural repairs, heating and electrical system repair, and weatherization. The specialist remains available to help with choosing a contractor and supervising the work during the course of the project. Program eligibility is determined by a borrower?s income level and the number of people in the home, among other factors, said Patti Dupuis, loan-fund manager for the Green Mountain Loan Fund. ?It?s a great program,? Dupuis said. ?Our specialist inspects the home and finds things that need to be upgraded to make the home healthy and safe, [and] comes back and provides us with a scope of work and the costs.? A variety of loan arrangements can be made, said Dupuis, including a zero-percent deferred-payment option for some borrowers, said Dupuis; the loan doesn?t have to be repaid until the home is sold or the title transferred to a new owner, though a borrower can begin to pay back the loan sooner, if preferred. Chandra Pollard, director of the home ownership program at the CVCLT, said the Healthy Homes Program provides grants to eligible low- or moderate-income homeowners for things like lead paint abatement, as well. Visit www.vthomeownership.org/ and www.cvclt.org. for more information.
Source: http://springfieldvt.blogspot.com/2013/05/various-home-improvement-loans.html
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Pentagon seeks $450M for Guantanamo
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Pentagon is asking Congress for more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama wants to close.
New details on the administration's budget request emerged on Tuesday and underscored the contradiction of the president waging a political fight to shutter the facility while the military calculates the financial requirements to keep the installation operating.
The budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 calls for $79 million for detention operations, the same as the current year, and $20.5 million for the office of military commissions, an increase over the current amount of $12.6 million. The request also includes $40 million for a fiber optic cable and $99 million for operation and maintenance.
The Pentagon also wants $200 million for military construction to upgrade temporary facilities. That work could take eight to 10 years as the military has to transport workers to the island, rely on limited housing and fly in building material.
The facility at the U.S. naval base in Cuba currently holds 166 prisoners, and hunger strikes by 100 of them over their indefinite detention and prison conditions prompted Obama to renew his effort to close Guantanamo. The president is expected to discuss the future of the facility in a speech on counterterrorism on Thursday.
"Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe," the president said at a White House news conference last month. "It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."
Since his inauguration in January 2009, Obama has pushed for shutting the prison, signing an executive order for closure during his first week in office. He has faced resistance in Congress with Republicans and some Democrats repeatedly blocking efforts to transfer terror suspects to the United States.
The law that Congress passed and Obama signed in March to keep the government running includes a longstanding provision that prohibits any money for the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States or its territories. It also bars spending to overhaul any U.S. facility in the U.S. to house detainees.
That makes it essentially illegal for the government to transfer the men it wants to continue holding, including five who were charged before a military tribunal with orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lawmakers have cited statistics on terror suspects striking again and argued that Obama has failed to produce a viable alternative to Guantanamo.
Some members of Congress counter that U.S. maximum security prisons currently hold convicted terrorists and can handle such suspects. Among those in U.S. prisons is Zacarias Moussaoui, who planned the Sept. 11 attacks.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he favors closing Guantanamo for several reasons, including the expense. Money in a time of deficits could be a factor for other lawmakers, including fiscal conservatives in Congress.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama on Tuesday offering his help to get the facility closed.
Until it is, Smith wrote, "it will continue to symbolize an unjust attempt to avoid the rule of law and to undermine the United States' moral standing in defending its values and protecting human rights."
Smith said al-Qaida continues to use Guantanamo to rally violent extremists to its cause.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-wants-450m-guantanamo-prison-221620893.html
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Help Sarah Pepper Raise Money For The Leukemia and Lymphoma ...
(Photo Credit: Sarah Pepper/ CBS Houston)
Join Sarah Pepper and Luby?s to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! It?s easy!? All you have to do it eat 
Print this flyer and bring it in to any Luby?s location and present it at the counter between 4-8 p.m. and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will receive 15% of sales.
Few facts:
Every four minutes a person is diagnosed with blood cancer.
Every ten minutes some dies from blood cancer.
(Photo Credit: Provided)
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The 21 Habits of Highly Happy People - The Self Improvement Blog
Researchers say that happiness is a result of thoughts and activities that create a sense of inner peace.
Here are 21 behaviors that have been found to enhance feelings of happiness. The list is broken down into general two categories: things to do, and things to stop doing.
The first group consists of 9 things to stop doing, or, behaviors to dump:
Dump grudges. Holding onto a grudge keeps you in a negative state of resentment, anger and hurt that preclude happiness. Letting go of a grudge opens up more space for positive emotions to fill in.
Dump irritations. Most of today?s burning issues will be irrelevant a year, a month, or even a day from now. Let life?s little annoyances roll off your back; forget them as fast as you can.
Dump problems. Scratch the word ?problem? from your internal dictionary, replacing it with ?challenge? or ?new opportunity to improve my life?.
Dump gossip. The daily dish around the water cooler is tempting, but gossiping about others showers you with negativity, and your body soaks it up. Instead, stick with positive comments.
Dump excuses. It?s easy to blame others for your life?s oopsies. But it?s a slippery slope into a mud pit of victimhood. Instead, take responsibility for your faux pas and use the opportunity to learn, grow and evolve yourself.
Dump lying. Every time you lie, your stress levels increase and your self-esteem crumbles a bit more. Plus, when others find out you lied, your relationships suffer. Telling the truth boosts your confidence and allows others to build trust in you.
Dump comparisons. Your life is unique, so by definition, there?s no way to compare your worth or performance to anyone else?s. Your success is measured by your progress, not others?.
Dump needing approval. It?s crucial to let your dreams and desires guide your decisions. Staying true to your heart will get you where you want to be. Needing the approval of others is only a frustrating waste of time because you?ll never do things exactly the way others think you should.
Dump clutter. It drains your precious energy every time you look at it or even think about it. Clutter is a major source of stress, anxiety, frustration, distraction and guilt, so purge your home and office of paper, chachkis and other superfluous stuff and you?ll feel lighter, more free and more peaceful.
The second list includes 12 things to start doing:
Be here now. Immerse yourself in what you?re doing right now. Instead of ruminating on sad memories or worrying about the future, savor the present moment.
Seek happy people. Misery loves company, and by the same token, happiness loves company, too. So choose friends who are generally happy, and you?ll be happier by osmosis.
Be kinder. When you?re kind, your brain produces feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin and you?ll foster a more positive attitude and stronger relationships.
Appreciate more. Being thankful reduces stress, increases positive emotions, and helps you reach your goals. Appreciation is most powerful when you keep a written list and add to it every day.
Dream bigger. You?re more likely to accomplish your goals when you open up the realm of possibilities. Rather than limiting yourself, bigger dreams expand your mind and give you the power and opportunity to achieve more of what you desire.
Listen deeply. Listening makes you smarter and more peaceful. You soak up the wisdom of others while quieting your own mind. Instead of rushing to be the next talker, you?ll feel content as you broaden your perspectives.
Nurture relationships. Positive social relationships are a key to happiness, so prioritize visiting with those you love.
Be in control. Avoid letting other people dictate the way you live. Instead, controlling your own life is a confidence booster that allows you to fulfill your desires and dreams.
Accept what can?t be changed. Everything can?t be perfect and fair, so recognize what you don?t have the power to change. Instead, invest your energy in improving what you can.
Stick with a routine. Getting up at the same time every day (preferably early) maximizes your circadian rhythm, giving you more energy and focus while enhancing your productivity.
Meditate. Even a brief meditation will focus your mind, decrease stress and cultivate inner peace. Meditation also creates physical changes in your brain that make you happier.
Take care of your body. This means eat well and exercise. What you eat affects your mood and energy levels in both the short and long term. Healthy eating puts your body and brain in a focused, happy state, but eating junk foods leads to junk thoughts, sluggishness and illness. Exercise is a tool to lose weight, prevent disease, and live longer, but these are future benefits. Instead, enjoy the immediate benefits of boosted chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which uplift your mood while kicking stress and depression.
There you have it, the 21 habits of highly happy people.
Today?s Coaching Questions: Are you willing to take on one new behavior every day for 3 weeks? Or, try one new behavior until it becomes a true habit?
Judy Widener is a Certified Life Coach and author of Power For A Lifetime: Tools You Customize to Build Your Personal Power Every Day Of Your Life. You can sign up for Discovering Your Values, a 5-day e-course at no cost at http://www.myinnerfrontiers.com. Her passion is assisting her clients to discover what is most important to them, then to create more balance and satisfaction in their lives. She offers a comprehensive program that teaches clients simple ways to build their personal power and overcome obstacles to achieving their dreams. Judy has coached more than 600 people over the past 13 years. Her website is http://www.myinnerfrontiers.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Judy_Widener
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-21-Habits-of-Highly-Happy-People&id=7707219
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
South Korea: The little dynamo that sneaked up on the world
South Korea, long in the shadow of other Asian 'tiger economies,' is suddenly hip and enormously prosperous ? so much so that it may have outgrown its thankless dream of reuniting with the North.
Shoppers, tourists, and businessmen and women walk along Gangnam Boulevard at night on March 23, 2013 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor
EnlargeFor months the young emperor to the north has been threatening to turn this thriving metropolis into a "sea of fire." But it's not easy to ruffle the jaunty vibe of 75-year-old Kim Chong-shik as he strolls among young couples and shoppers along the boutiques of the Gangnam District.
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Living well, it's said, is the best revenge. "I never imagined it would be like this," he says, grinning, not far from a playfully misplaced sign on a coffeehouse: Beverly Hills City Limits.
The retired civil servant, who remembers the Korean War and its miserable aftermath, cuts a dapper figure against a springtime cold snap, a green silk scarf peeking out from his handsome wool overcoat.
Why so stylish? "Because I live here!"
Ten million people live in Seoul, the heart of a huge sprawl that is home to half of the Republic of Korea's 49 million people. It is a hard-charging, high-pressure, high-tech hub of the 21st-century global economy ? and sits in the cross hairs of an enemy who seems unaware the cold war ended a generation ago. North Korean missile installations are just 30 miles away ? and now the threats are nuclear.
Yet not long ago, the dream of a single Korea ? reconciled in peace like Germany, not through war like Vietnam ? seemed like a destiny within reach. As recently as two months ago, Koreans from the south were still crossing the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to go to work alongside 50,000 northerners at the Kaesong industrial park, a legacy of the South's old "Sunshine Policy" of reconciliation. The Kaesong facility opened four years after athletes from both Koreas marched into the 2000 Sydney Olympics under a flag depicting a united peninsula. That same year South Korea's president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And Koreans have long embraced the idea that they are of "one blood." A January 2011 survey by the Korean Broadcasting System found that 71.6 percent of South Koreans favored reunification, and nearly as many said they would be willing to pay taxes to support it.
But the ardor for reunification has cooled with a new round of tensions this year. Pyongyang's threats appear to have decimated the southerners' goodwill: In just six months there was a precipitous drop in the number of South Koreans who consider northerners a "neighbor" or "one of us," from 64.2 percent as late as November 2012 to 37.3 percent in late April, and a spike to 46 percent considering northerners as strangers at best, if not enemies.
North Korea's new weaponry and "Supreme Leader" Kim Jong-un's bombast ? including recent nuclear and missile tests ? raise fears that a single Korea might happen in the worst way possible, through horrible violence.
Thoughts of a path to unity make Kim Chong-shik's smile disappear: "I worry about it a lot. We've gone in opposite directions. The differences are so great. It would be very difficult."
A hip prosperity
South Korea has never been so prosperous, so gregarious, so hip ? so much so that it seems as if the nation sneaked up on the world.
As "the American century" fades, and the 21st century is said to "belong to China," it may make more sense to speak of "the Asian century" ? and now is South Korea's moment. And in that moment, it shines in such stark contrast to the sad state of North Korea ? so impoverished its people literally stand a few inches shorter than their southern cousins. The peninsula's bipolar condition is reflected most aptly in its leading personalities. The stocky K-pop party rocker Psy spreads "Gangnam Style" to the world while the North's pudgy supreme leader, like his father and grandfather before him, spreads menace, Pyongyang style.
The nuclear saber-rattling may have prompted the United States in March to add B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers to its annual military exercises with South Korea, but there are few outward signs of distress among South Koreans themselves. Seoul's stock market took it all in stride, and 50,000 Psy fans jammed a Seoul stadium for a mid-April concert that premi?red his new song and video "Gentleman," in which Psy does not seem gentlemanly at all. Nobody expects him or any act, anywhere, to soon top the 1.5 billion-plus YouTube viewings of "Gangnam Style."
Psy's global success has made him a national hero. He is, in a sense, a flamboyant, fun-loving, globe-trotting version of the "industrial warriors" hailed by South Korean politicians for transforming this small nation into an economic powerhouse. While the Korean Wave exports K-pop and TV and film dramas far and wide, the rest of South Korea Inc. keeps cranking out computer chips, smart phones, TVs, autos, oil tankers, and container ships, while also building skyscrapers, highways, and shopping malls at home and abroad. In the first quarter of 2013, as Pyongyang started to act up, South Korea's gross domestic product jumped markedly over recent quarters. Samsung Electronics recorded a 42 percent spike in profits in its sixth straight quarter of growth as it pulls away from Apple in the smart-phone market.
South Koreans, clearly, aren't easily distracted. At Hyundai Motor Group headquarters, Doh Bo-eun, a mild-mannered economist and father of teenage girls, explains that it's pointless to dwell on Pyongyang when his duty is to study how the European Union's troubles may affect auto exports.
Over at the entertainment firm CJ E&M ? Psy's label ? music division president Ahn Joon likens North Korea's threats to a mild illness, and says he worries more about ways to keep K-pop popping. That's why the colorfully coiffed Wonder Boyz put in marathon rehearsals at a Gangnam studio, working to make it big before they must report for compulsory military duty.
Until recently, South Korea only seemed to make news when North Korea caused trouble. Today's confrontation may portend more than the lethal violence of 2010, when 46 South Korean sailors were killed in the sinking of the naval vessel Cheonan, and later two marines and two civilians were killed in the shelling of the Yeonpyeong Islands. (North Korea denies being responsible for the sinking; an international investigation concludes it was.) At that time, South Korea's cooler heads prevailed, opting for a measured military retaliation against North Korean gun positions and vowing harsher payback for further attacks. The vow continues under newly elected Park Geun-hye, the nation's first female president and the daughter of a former military dictator credited with laying the foundation for South Korea's success and creating its Ministry of Unification. Yet even after the sinking of the Cheonan, Ms. Park's predecessor, President Lee Myung-bak, was optimistic enough to propose a "reunification tax" to prepare the country for its likely destiny.
Korean nationalism is a potent force, whether it refers to one nation, the other, or the imagined third. Yet for much of its history Korea has been dominated by foreign powers. In the first great war of the 20th century, Japan shocked the Western world when its forces throttled Russia to strengthen its domination of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria ? a part of the Korean "Hermit Kingdom."
South Korea's population is 2/5ths the size of Japan's, 1/7th the size of the US's, and 1/26th the size of China's, but pound for pound, it's outpunching the economic heavyweights. Once also-rans, companies like Samsung Electronics, LG, and Hyundai Motors are going toe-to-toe with the likes of Apple, Intel, Sony, Toyota, and Ford. Critics point out that Apple defeated Samsung in a high-profile patent case last year. Silicon Valley has long portrayed South Korea as "a fast follower," better at imitating than innovating. Samsung, however, is adept at collaboration: Apple used its chips in the iPhone, while Samsung's smart phones run Google's Android operating system. And Samsung has bragging rights to the No. 1 market share in TVs and memory chips ? as well as one of the world's biggest arsenals of patents.
South Korea's tech know-how has also helped drive its success in entertainment. It was the Chinese, in the late 1990s, who first fell hard for Korea's TV melodramas and other entertainment, dubbing it hallyu ? Mandarin for Korean Wave, which has since spread globally by satellite and Internet, winning fans in Europe, the Americas, and the Arab world. South Korea was early to embrace the Internet, rewiring Seoul for lightning-fast connections in the 1990s.
While Psy and several other Korean stars are original talents, K-pop has also thrived through its "idol" model. Mr. Ahn, the music executive, is matter-of-fact about the starmaking machinery that casts young talent for girl groups that resemble Korean Barbies and boy groups that look like Japanese anime characters. The songwriting formula requires English lyrical hooks for wider appeal.
South Korea's export-dependent economy faced a stiff test in the 2008 financial meltdown and the global recession ? and held up remarkably well. Data compiled by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that South Korea's growth slowed to 0.3 percent in 2009, but the nation, unlike most, never slipped into recession. From 2004 to 2011, its unemployment rate never rose above 3.7 percent while income per capita soared 36 percent, to $30,366. South Korea's yin and yang of capitalism and socialism, meanwhile, has long provided universal health care and other safety-net benefits.
Not all news is upbeat. South Koreans' new affluence also produced a housing bubble and an unwise tendency to splurge on status symbols. When Psy sings "Hey, sexy lady," he is lampooning Seoul's strutting nouveau riche. High household debt is considered South Korea's greatest domestic economic challenge. Along with Louis Vuitton, Prada, and other chic brands, signs of affluence include $15 cups of gourmet coffee and occasional glimpses of women wearing hoods to obscure their recovery from cosmetic surgery. South Korea is the world's per capita leader in nipping and tucking, with Westernized eyes especially popular.
South Korea also holds a grimmer global distinction: It is No. 1 in suicides per capita among the 34 nations in the OECD ? and by a wide margin. The rise has been startling and hard to understand. A 2012 report (based on data from 2010), put South Korea's suicide rate at 33.5 per 100,000 people, up from 28.4 in 2009.
Explanations are elusive. As in many Asian cultures, a high premium is placed on reputation, or "face." In one report, South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare cited "complicated socioeconomic reasons and a growing number of one-person households" as contributing factors. As South Korea has become more affluent and image-conscious, the flip side of success may be financial ruin and shame. Notably, in 2009, a year after he left office, former President Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide by leaping off a cliff amid allegations of corruption.
Most suicides don't make headlines. At the elite Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, there have been a half-dozen suicides in recent years. Misgivings are expressed about a driven, ultracompetitive culture that produces students who score 97 percent on an exam and consider it a failure.
"Too many young people are very unhappy," says Han Sang-geun, a math professor. "If they don't succeed, you know, they are devastated."
Once a foreign aid recipient, now a donor
Time was that Koreans considered rice a luxury. During the Korean War and for many years after, recalls retired Army Maj. Gen. Ahn Kwang-chan, his village survived on a gruel of barley, which is much easier to grow than rice. Meat was for special occasions.
Well into the 1970s, South Koreans were in worse shape than their northern cousins, who benefited from ties within the Communist sphere. South Korea depended heavily on foreign aid, mostly from the US, including payment for more than 300,000 soldiers who fought communists in Vietnam. Today, South Korea is the world's only nation that has transformed itself from major recipient of foreign aid to major donor ? with North Korea as a beneficiary.
The rags-to-riches tale is sometimes called "the Miracle of the Han River," the waterway that curves through Seoul and empties at an estuary on the DMZ. (Gangnam means "south of the river.") But the wellspring of the nation's success, many say, can be traced to a different han. The word signifies a distinctly Korean pain ? the sorrow, anger, and unresolved injustice borne of subjugation. A prime example: the 200,000 "comfort women" of World War II forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.
The Allied victory liberated Korea from Japan but added new layers of han. The Ko-reans were divided by rival superpowers, creating conditions for fratricidal war five years later that began with an invasion ordered by North Korea's Kim Il-sung, whose grandson now leads the Pyongyang regime. The South's soldiers included Park Chung-hee, who in 1961 would seize power in a South Korea military coup and later prevail in an election to formally claim the title of president. The first President Park was an authoritarian figure who threatened to jail the patriarchs of the country's most powerful families ? and later worked with them to create the chaebol system of conglomerates to develop the nation's export-oriented economy. Only 15 years ago, near the dawn of the Sunshine Policy, the Asian financial crisis threatened to crash South Korea's banking system and bring the miracle to an abrupt end. The country was vulnerable in part because the chaebols were considered too big to fail.
"It was the survival of the fattest," explains Tcha Moon-joong, a director at the government-backed Korean Development Institute. On the brink of ruin, South Korea accepted $47 billion in emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). South Korea Inc. was stripped down and rebuilt. Four wasteful chaebols were dismantled, with Daewoo selling its auto works to General Motors. Samsung, Hyundai, and others restructured. The result: a leaner, tougher economic machine.
The IMF's, however, wasn't the only help that South Korea received. Thousands of Ko-reans like taxi driver Yoo Man-su lined up to donate gold jewelry and heirlooms to shore up the nation's reserves. Athletes donated gold medals. In raw monetary terms, the value was modest ? but the collective emotional message was powerful. Several Asian countries were in crisis, but only South Koreans had this response. More recently, "when Greece got into trouble, the Greeks reached for rocks and threw them," Mr. Tcha points out. "Here, the people reached for gold and gave it to help the nation."
Such was the patriotism and the sense of sacrifice of the han generation. The Gangnam generation, Tcha says, lacks that "hungry spirit."
Leno can't kick Hyundai around anymore
At Hyundai headquarters, Choi Myoung-wha, vice president of marketing strategy, remembers her days at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., and laughing about Jay Leno's Hyundai jokes. ("Researchers have discovered a way to double the value of a Hyundai. Just fill it up.")
Today Hyundai Motors is the world's fifth largest automaker, in part because of its reputation for quality ? even if it did issue a massive recall in April regarding faulty air bags. Hyundai put an end to the jokes in 1999 with a "bet the company" move that paid off: "America's Best Warranty" ? a 10-year, 100,000-mile guarantee.
Hyundai and its sister Kia line are ubiquitous in South Korea, but its global reach may be more impressive. Last year, Hyundai's newest factory, in Brazil, started producing hatchbacks designed for the South American market. The new facility signified the completion of a strategy that had already put factories in Russia, India, and China ? the so-called BRIC group of large, fast-growing economies. Hyundai has three factories in China, Ms. Choi says, capable of pushing 1 million cars per year into what is already the world's largest auto market. It also has factories in the Czech Republic, Turkey, and the US, in Alabama.
The ground floor of Hyundai headquarters here doubles as a showroom for leading models such as the Sonata hybrid and popular Elantra. Another display promotes its hydrogen-powered, zero-emission car. Hyundai boasts that it is the first carmaker to introduce the assembly-line production of such vehicles, to fulfill orders from progressive Scandinavian governments.
Choi dismisses the rap that South Korea is merely a fast imitator, considering the innovations coming from Hyundai and Samsung. Now South Korea has become a trendsetter, and the Galaxy smart phones and K-pop have indirectly helped the nation's auto industry.
"The Korean Wave clearly plays into the country-of-origin effect," she says, "and does so in a very positive way."
South Korea's collective success, she suggests, reflects a lesson described in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers": Research shows that 10,000 hours of work are needed to achieve mastery in a particular endeavor ? and such mastery creates conditions for creativity.
Long hours are part of the Korean work ethic, starting from grade school on into careers. After a regular school day, students often do a second shift in private academies known as hogwans. Some students spend 12 or 13 hours a day in one school or another. Even parents who find it excessive say they feel compelled to help their children prevail in this competitive culture ? and, it follows, anywhere else in the world.
South Korea's human wave also includes a global legion of multilingual corporate representatives, entrepreneurs, and students. Seoul Global High School is a public boarding school that aims "to nurture international specialists." It selects students through an application and interview process, and teaches in both Korean and English. Twenty percent of its graduates attend foreign universities, mostly in the US, with the rest typically entering South Korea's elite universities. Seoul Global's dorms discourage the hogwan system, but it's still intense: Tae kwon do is mandatory, with first-year students starting at 6 a.m., and music is mandatory as well. "They can graduate only if they know how to play an instrument," the principal explains.
The education obsession, blamed by some as a factor in the high suicide rate, has moved South Korean students toward the top in international academic rankings. Koreans, Choi says, "have a passion for being No. 1."
Electing a woman to face the North
With the inauguration of Ms. Park, South Korea claimed another first. "It's a great thing! Our people selected a lady president!" Ahn, the retired Army general, says. "How wonderful it is!" No other nation in Northeast Asia, he notes, has ever elected a woman as its leader. "When do you think a lady prime minister will be chosen to lead Japan? Or China? Or Russia?"
He has other reasons to be happy. In electing a conservative, Korea's voters, in a sense, affirmed Ahn's recent service as a top national security adviser to conservative Mr. Lee and the handling of the 2010 clashes with North Korea. The election of Park last December signifies continuity more than change.
The looming question is whether Park and Mr. Kim will navigate toward war or peace. Also key is how China, long supportive of Pyongyang and of a divided Korea, will apply pressure, given Beijing's displeasure over Kim's nukes.
In his unpretentious Seoul home, Ahn politely demurs from a discussion of politics, preferring to discuss Korean character. He shows his "family book," which he says records 28 generations. (Mr. Yoo, the cabbie, brags his goes back 31.) There is a box of Titleist golf balls on his desk, and beneath the glass desktop is a favorite proverb: "If there's no road, make it. Hope starts here."
The Sunshine Policy was such a road. The name was inspired by Aesop's fable about a contest between the wind and the sun to force a man to remove his cloak. The wind just made the man grip his cloak tighter, while the sun's warmth inspired him to remove it on his own.
The policy had produced tangible advances. But progress stalled and tensions resumed, culminating in the clashes of 2010. After the North's "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-il, died in late 2011, there was hope that his son, who had been educated in Europe, might chart a new course. But today a common perspective here is that after South Korea offered an olive branch, the young Kim brandished weapons of mass destruction.
A journey to the DMZ offers as little insight into the cloistered, enigmatic North as a shopping spree in Gangnam. Instead, it's better to hike up a hill through an old, gentrified neighborhood north of the Han River and visit the North Korea Graduate School of Kyungnam University. Inside the library, in a room marked "restricted access," a collection of recent North Korean publications includes the nation's largest news-paper, with a front page laid out as sheet music and lyrics extolling Kim and titled "The Person Who Holds the Key to Our Fate and Future." Inside pages display undated propaganda photos flaunting the nation's firepower and resolve.
These glimpses of North Korea's menace contrast with the urbane panorama of Seoul, which from this vantage includes the Blue House, the nation's executive office and home to Park. Like her counterpart in Pyongyang, she is heir to a political legacy, but otherwise the two have little in common. At 61, she is twice Kim's age. While Pyongyang has bizarrely faulted her "venomous swish of skirt," she is perceived as very much her father's daughter, with a toughness and pragmatism tempered by experience. "To most South Koreans, Madame Park is not so much a woman leader as [she is] her father, Park Chung-hee, personified in a woman's body," says Bong Young-shik, a senior research fellow at the Asan Institute.
South Korea's new president was a young student in France when, in 1974, her mother was killed in an assassination attempt on Mr. Park, prompting the young Ms. Park to assume the duties of first lady. Five years later, after her father was killed by his own spy chief during a drinking bout, it's said that her first concern was that North Korea might seize the moment to attack. She never married and later served in the National Assembly, immersing herself in politics. Her campaign played "the gender card," Mr. Bong says, but also emphasizes her experience in the Blue House, the mentorship of her father, and political experience. During the Sunshine period, she met Kim's father in Pyongyang.
On May 7, Park visited President Obama at the White House. At a joint press conference both affirmed the nations' solidarity and vowed that Pyongyang's threats would not win concessions. "North Korea will not be able to survive if it only clings to developing its nuclear weapons at the expense of its people's happiness," Park said. "However, should North Korea choose the path of becoming a responsible member of the community of nations, we are willing to provide assistance ... with the international community."
Can the North do the Gangnam gallop?
Back in Gangnam, Mr. Kim, the retired civil servant, gives a thumbs-up. That's his opinion of Psy, whose popularity is something to behold. Industrial warriors, college professors, students, random shoppers ? all seem to root for Psy. Young people say that when they travel abroad ? and are invariably asked if they're Japanese or Chinese ? new acquaintances are excited by the answer.
"Some people start doing the dance," says a 20-year-old woman at a cos-metics shop, laughing as she demonstrates the Gangnam gallop. Her phone buzzes ? and she answers first in English, then French, then Korean. Later she explains that she recently moved home after several years in Paris ? and that, thanks to K-pop, Parisiennes now tell her they want to visit Seoul.
Many South Koreans profess indifference to Pyongyang, and many are quick to offer political assessments. The comments jibe with that April survey by the Asan Institute that showed, for the first time, more southerners considering northerners strangers or enemies rather than "one of us" or neighbors.
"There is a fundamental break happening in attitudes on the North," Karl Friedhoff, an Asan spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. "While previously South Koreans wanted to see the South absorb the North, there has been a change in that a majority, albeit slim, would prefer to see a federation ? the two states co-existing."
But the future may hold a different scenario. The idea of reunification now seems daunting. There is the human dimension: Time, many point out, has faded old family ties. After generations of divergent experience, are Koreans really still one great tribe of 75 million people? Could South Koreans respect northerners as equals? And then there's the economic effect: How much would this cost? How much would taxes go up? In a merger of strength and weakness, could South Korea lift up the North ? or would the North drag its neighbor down?
The feeling persists that reunification may be inevitable ? even though the differences may be irreconcilable. A single Korea has always been a pretty thought. But getting there, and being there, could get ugly.
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