Hi. I'm Newley Purnell. I cover technology and business for The Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. I use this site to share my stories and often blog about the books I'm reading, tech trends, sports, travel, and our dog Ginger. For updates, get my weekly email newsletter.
You may remember that a while back I mentioned the Sandals and Socks Web site, which pokes fun at those unwise enough to combine stockings and strapy footwear.
Well, I just learned that none other than longtime friend and occasional Newley.com contributor Jordan M. has just been featured on the site due to a youthful fashion faux-pas. Here’s the delightful photo; you’ll have to visit the site and scroll down to see the caption: “Cheeky Minx.”
I saw this recently on The Daily Show and I can’t believe it’s true. Above is an image from the FEMA Web site illustrating “the disaster life cycle:”
The disaster life cycle describes the process through which emergency managers prepare for emergencies and disasters, respond to them when they occur, help people and institutions recover from them, mitigate their effects, reduce the risk of loss, and prevent disasters such as fires from occurring.
At FEMA, I guess it all starts — and ends — with disaster.
I so want one of these. Although I’d settle for a butt-load of boondoggle key chains. Or a time machine. Or a bo staff. Or maybe, just maybe, a gift certificate for a lesson at Rex Kwan Do. (Bow to your sensei!)
R.W. Apple Jr. has a fantastic article in today’s NY Times about a cheap-eats tour of BKK given by an eccentric expat.
It opens thusly:
The guidebooks touted Bed Supperclub, where the hip and beautiful recline while they eat, and the airline magazine featured the Australian Amanda Gale, who has set the town on its ear with her fusion food at Cy’an. But I was looking for something more traditional, so as soon as I had settled into my hotel room, I picked up the phone and called Robert Halliday, an American writer and gourmand who has lived here so long that he finds vacations without Thai food painful.
“Welcome back to Bangkok,” he said. “Prepare to eat like a shark.”
Soon, he and I, a pair of ample fellows, were accordioned into the back of a not-so-ample taxi, en route to Chote Chitr, a modest establishment with only five tables, near the famous temple, Wat Suthat. “You won’t believe the banana-flower salad,” he enthused as we wove through the city’s notorious traffic. “It’s one of the wonders of the world, up there with the late Beethoven quartets.”
BBC:
A court in Indonesia has cut the sentence being served by Australian woman Shapelle Corby, her lawyers have said.
Corby, who was found guilty of smuggling marijuana into Bali in May, will now serve 15 years in jail instead of 20, attorney Hotman Paris said.
But Corby’s sister Mercedes said she was furious with the appeal verdict. “She should be free,” Mercedes said.
Corby’s case has gripped Australians, with many believing she is innocent.
DeeperMotive.org: “Fighting waste. Saving money. Living simply.”
Matthew Baldwin at Defective Yeti has posted a moving story about discovering that his 18-month-old son has autistic spectrum disorder. Give it a read.
Snips from an article in today’s Globe and Mail:
Nearly 50 English teachers from Canada have been detained, deported or investigated on allegations of visa fraud in South Korea, a country seeking to purge itself of young Westerners increasingly regarded as unqualified, unruly and unwelcome.
Long a magnet for foreigners drawn to working overseas, Korea has arrested hundreds of them in the past couple of weeks. Immigration officials have been rounding up dozens of teachers at their homes, work, or at the airports.
While as many as 10,000 foreigners legally teach the language at private English schools in Korea, the nation’s media have been full of exposés about teachers with dubious credentials.
Many of the foreign teachers, if not most, are Canadian.
…
Visa frauds go on in just about every country, but Korea’s clampdown has been lent a sense of urgency by highly publicized accounts of immorality by young foreigners. Reports of marijuana and cocaine busts have long tended to feature Westerners — including five Canadian teachers who were arrested two years ago.But more recent events have led to a furor. An unknown English teacher in Korea used the Internet to post what amounted to a how-to guide for seducing Korean women. Then, two English teachers from Cape Breton, N.S., made the headlines for breaking a local man’s jaw in a bar brawl. They spent 40 days in jail and were ordered to pay $30,000 (U.S.) in a form of restitution known locally as “blood money.”
And lately, Korean TV has aired segments painting English teachers as inept, unqualified foreigners who frequently lie about their credentials.
(Via Scott Sommers.)
This is too cool to possibly be true. Of course, “major stake” doesn’t necessarily mean “controlling stake.”
