in praise of the UNHCR

now, who else could negotiate the transfer of almost 200 north korean refugees to south korea from thailand? i mean, really. The UN does indeed provide indispensible services around the globe. i love how the BBC article says that the Thai government doesn't want to be known as an easy haven for refugees. bwahahaha. i'm sorry, i have been to thaialnd, and anyone who is desperate enough to refuge to thailand must be in one hell of a bad situation. excepting the tourist spots, thailand is a total shithole. easy refugee haven, my ass. (hmm, that was an interesting image.) anyway, apparently these north koreans traveled through china and then made their way to thailand. now, UNHCR has cleared some of the people, mostly children, i believe, for travel to south korea. and they aren't sure what will happen to the rest. um, if the thai government even tries to send those people back to that psycho in north korea they might as well shoot them themselves and it would be less traumatic. and if the thai governement does send them back to north korea, then they are lost morally at all levels of society. those refugees were found...176 stuffed into a two storey thai building. because apparently that was better than where they were before. they were probably just thrilled to be able to eat since their assing dictator is starving them. thailand. please. they should be happy anyone wants to refuge there. and this is me and beth playing with the sepia tone feature on her phone in order to send a picture to make julia jealous.




in other news, we now only have 8 planets in our solar system, but we have three little dwarf planets. how cute. that should be a boon for textbook reprints and classroom posters. i think the picture above clearly indicates that beth and i should be two of the 8 planets. full-fledged, though. though beth does like dwarfs...

my graduate advisor just called me. what a big sweetheart. he's so proactive and kind and interested that it almost makes me want to stay in Asian studies rather than transfer to international relations. certainly if i could make such decisions based on one man, i would happily stay on the Asian studies course. and he was very kind about my decision to transfer, and even unnecessarily encouraging...apparently he thinks my record is good enough that i should have no problem. i have no such confidence, but it relieves me that he does. anyway, i shall go visit him sometime when school starts so we can chat about china.