A victory for the left in South Korea:

In a sharp political reaction against the impeachment of President Roh Moo Hyun, South Korean voters tripled the size of his parliamentary delegation on Thursday, ensuring liberal control of the legislature.

In a rout of conservatives who voted for impeachment a month ago, the pro-Roh Uri Party won 152 seats, a slim majority of the 299-seat, one-chamber National Assembly. The conservative Grand National Party lost its majority, falling to 121 seats, and the Millennium Democratic Party, once the second-largest party, won only 9 seats, according to news agency reports with 99 percent of the vote counted. A new left-wing party, the Democratic Labor Party, came in third, winning 10 seats, and smaller parties won 7 seats.

The Korea Times explores the significance of the DLP:

The DLP fell a bit short of the twenty seats needed to form a floor negotiating group, but has emerged as a new force and will clearly punch far above its weight in the new assembly when sessions begin at the end of May…The significance of its arrival on the national political scene comes from the signal it sends to the old school parties that build themselves around the strength of their leader. For decades, party activities revolved around one man and the regional ties he could command…

Kwon Young-ghil, the leader of the DLP, was instrumental in establishing the party but has since taken on a less central role as the party has based its organization around democratic structures and processes enshrined in a constitution that was built and decided upon by its membership.

The YDN reports on the Fair Share press conference.

Credit where it’s due: The Yale Daily News Editorial Board, in their Staff Editorial for tomorrow, takes Princeton to task for its proposal to regiment grades –

It seems Princeton’s new system will penalize departments that have lots of small seminars, in which a greater percentage of students may be doing truly A-quality work than in a large lecture class. Additionally, it could create faculty tensions. Which professors will be entitled to hand out A’s to more than 35 percent of the class? Will the more senior professors get to give the grades they want, while those lower on the ladder are forced to assign whatever grades are left? Even Princeton’s potentially standardized grade distribution doesn’t seem to make it any more likely that students will be getting the grades they actually deserve.

– while also calling Yale students on their sense of entitlement in grading:

Few students seem to even consider the possibility that a low grade might be deserved — ours certainly have been. Instead, students here treat a bad grade as some sort of moral injustice, often making the offensive argument that any work at Yale would be ‘A’ work at another school. Students do not, contrary to what many seem to believe, have an inherent right to good grades just by virtue of being here.

Right on.

From the LA Times:

The National Rifle Assn. sold a videotape on its website during the early days of the 2000 presidential campaign showing a top official predicting that if George W. Bush won, “we’ll have a president … where we work out of their office.”

Surprisingly, the issues that have most alienated many gun groups from the Bush administration have little to do with firearms, but rather with the Patriot Act and other homeland security measures instituted after Sept. 11. Opposition to such laws has aligned gun-rights activists with unlikely partners, such as liberal Democrats and the ACLU. “It’s not just gun rights for us, it’s the Bill of Rights,” said Angel Shamaya, executive director of KeepAndBearArms.com, which claims tens of thousands of supporters. “A lot of gun-rights advocates are from mildly upset to livid over President Bush and his administration.”

My personal position is that guns are dangerous machines that, like cars, should be licensed and regulated. But I’ve also become increasingly convinced that both the gun-controllers, whom I agree with, and the NRA-ers, whom I don’t, are engaged in somewhat fetishistic politics around what’s largely a proxy issue. I’d much rather have seen a Million Mom March for equality in education spending, for childcare, for healthcare, for aggressive job creation, or for restoring welfare benefits – any of which I’d contend would do more to lower crime in this country. But while I think the “Moms'” priorities are questionable, I’m still more frustrated by those who are comfortable with government regulating their sex lives, curtailing their speech rights, and surveiling their records but believe that having to wait before receiving a gun represents a violation of the principles of the American Revolution. While I don’t see what hte NRA is fighting for as a civil liberty, I’m glad to see that it isn’t the only one the gun-activists in this article are concerned about.

Ben Adler provides an update on the battle for the soul of the Sierra Club.

The YDN reports on SLAM’s trip with other New Haveners to Hartford yesterday to lobby for prison reform.

Ruth Rosen plugs 2004ward in the San Francisco Gate:

These are not the college students you see on the evening news — the ones who head to exotic Southern beaches during their spring break and spend their vacation half-naked, dancing in a drunken stupor. They know how to enjoy themselves, but they’re also willing to do the grassroots work necessary to expand the number of Americans who participate in our democracy. They’re pragmatic; they’re idealistic. After talking with them, I felt a surge of optimism because a new generation cares, very deeply, about shaping the future of our democracy…

You bet we’re gonna enjoy ourselves.

From CNN:

Unlike Al Gore whose campaign manager, political director and finance director were African-American, the Kerry campaign, as of yet, has no one of color in the innermost circle, including Kerry’s campaign manager, campaign chairperson, media adviser, policy director, foreign policy adviser, general election manager, convention planner, national finance chairman, and head of VP search team.

That’s an odd position for a campaign that will probably rely on African-Americans and Hispanics for one in four of their general election votes and the crucial margin of difference in battleground states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.

The New New Left versus the Old New Left:

By the time McGruder had finished, and a tipsy Joe Wilson took the microphone to deliver his New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps half the guests had excused themselves to join Alterman in the lobby. A Nation contributor estimated that McGruder had offended eighty per cent of the audience. “Some people still haven’t recovered,” he said, sounding thrilled.

He went on, laughing a little, “I was not the right guest for that event. I’ll be the first one to say that. It was one of those reminders that, yeah, I’m not this political leader that people are looking for.”

Me to Aaron McGruder after a talk he gave here last year: “How do you see Clintonian Welfare Reform?”
Aaron McGruder: “You’re a Yalie, aren’t you?”
Me: “Yeah, but I try not to act like it.
Aaron McGruder: “Too late.”

And then we talked about the absurdity of forcing people off the rolls in the name of making them work without offering them jobs.

Police have identified two hundred rape suspects. That is, two hundred black men in Charlottesville.