Newsmen don’t often use these words simultaneously: panic, spiral, ignominious, and chaotic. But they were fit for the New York Times to print today as it detailed the harrowing fall of the U.S. stock market which occurred over the last 12-24 hours.

Hagwons may soon be required to post their tuition fees online in order to prevent overcharging, says this morning’s Korea Times. The short blurb describes efforts by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology to pass through hagwon law revisions at the National Assembly effective next year.

The Can from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

By the looks of it, the clinic is part of a newer breed of dental clinics catering to younger patients, mostly women and college students. The ambience lifts patients far away from the cold sterile experience of perhaps two decades ago into a colorful, bright, warm world created by people who admire design and environment as much as sparkly teeth. Imagine Red Mango meets Coffee Bean and you’re in the right neighborhood of what the office looks like.

Marmot’s Hole had the scoop this morning on today’s Korea Times piece about changing visa requirements for gyopos, or overseas Koreans, to include medical and criminal background screening. Currently, only E-2 visa applicants receive checks prior to gaining admittance as English instructors.

I was just a kid on September 29, 1982 when a serial killer contaminated a bottle of Tylenol with cyanide, poisoning seven fatally and causing nationwide panic. Practically every child in America was afraid of having a headache or taking Tylenol for a fever. Authorities reacted swiftly, banning all gel-caps from being sold and passing new laws on tamper resistant products. Food and drug manufacturers for their part did their best to ensure that no poison could ever reach their products by sealing foods in tighter-than-ever packaging.

Fall evokes a different mindset for me. It’s a time for me to reflect and gather the memories of the warmer, more active part of my year. A time filled with images of splashing in water amid sparkling sunshine, and further back, periods busily going from one place to the next grasping at the fleeting days as though it would all end too soon. All of these memories, with perhaps the moment Chusok passes, are only then regaled as stories to tell over chicken and beer on a chilly October night.

Just around the corner is a year that was almost un-imaginably futuristic to me when I was ten. The year 2010 is upon us. Are you ready to don your mylar suit?
In case you haven’t noticed there are a lot of construction cranes in Seoul. This is now only partly due to the fading tail of the real estate apartment boom. If you look carefully, the buildings being built are not just glass apartment towers of the I Park and Hyperion mold.