Category Archives: Signs of the Times

South Korea’s Population is Collapsing; Government Is Panicking

South Korea: Hyper-Competitive and Childless

There are enough people to go around: eight billion now, compared to two billion less than a hundred years ago. Fifty-one million in South Korea, compared to only twelve million a hundred years ago. So why are South Koreans obsessed about their low birth rate?

It is certainly very low now. The average number of children a South Korean woman will have in her lifetime is just 0.72, whereas the birth rate needs to be at least 2.1 children per woman to prevent the population from falling.

NC Governor’s Race: It’s a Black & White Choice

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Democratic attorney general and the Republican lieutenant governor won North Carolina’s primaries for governor on Tuesday, setting the stage for what will be an expensive and highstakes November contest in a state that the two parties see as a pivotal battleground in 2024.

Josh Stein and Mark Robinson, each of whom turned back multiple party rivals, will present a stark contrast for voters in the ninthlargest state’s fall elections.

Stein is a longtime member of North Carolina’s political scene, a lawyer with the endorsement of termlimited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and a long history of consumer advocacy before and during his time as AG. He’d be the state’s first Jewish governor if elected.

Robinson, meanwhile, is a former factory worker who splashed into conservative circles after a 2018 viral speech to his hometown city council — catapulting him to lieutenant governor in 2020 and the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. He’s North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor and would become the state’s first Black governor as well.

Continue reading NC Governor’s Race: It’s a Black & White Choice

Trump to Mark Robinson: You’re MLK Times Two — MLK on Steroids

AP News: Trump endorses Mark Robinson for North Carolina governor and compares him to Martin Luther King Jr.

BY GARY D. ROBERTSON
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – March 03, 2024

— Former president Donald Trump endorsed North Carolina Lt. Gov Mark Robinson for governor on Saturday, several months after the former president pledged to do so.

At a rally at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, the former president also compared Robinson, who is Black, to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the famed civil rights leader. He referred to Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Trump said Robinson wasn’t sure how to respond when Trump compared him to the legendary civil rights leader, telling him: “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.”

“You should like it,” Trump said.

Continue reading Trump to Mark Robinson: You’re MLK Times Two — MLK on Steroids

King- A Night March; A Killer Klan Squad; And a Long Read for the Right Day

Selma, Alabama — February 1965

I

Assassination scene – Lorraine Motel, April 4, 1968, Memphis

In the decades since Dr. King’s murder, I have been bemusedly tolerant of the plethora of conspiracy theories offered in explanation, tending to believe and disbelieve them all, in equal measure:

The CIA? The Klan? The Mafia? A redneck hit squad? A lone bigot?

All are plausible. Yet I’m evenhandedly skeptical too, because while one of the conspiracies finally succeeded, I knew well enough that there were numerous others which were foiled only by chance, by timely police intervention, or —or, well, because someone like me was walking near Dr. King at just the right moment, and blocked a sniper’s aim. Continue reading King- A Night March; A Killer Klan Squad; And a Long Read for the Right Day

A Quaker In Conflict, Outer and Inner: Damned if He Speaks, Damned If He Doesn’t. Meanwhile, There’s Work To Do.

New York Times — December 31, 2023

Can He Condemn the Killings Without Causing More Pain?

Chris George has lived in Israel and Gaza, where he was once held hostage. As his employees ask him to speak out on the latest war, he is torn.

He had spent his entire career attending to the horrors of terrorism and war, and now Chris George, 70, believed it was his responsibility to act again. He sat at his desk inside Connecticut’s largest refugee resettlement agency, trying to write a public statement about the violence in Israel and Gaza that had resurfaced traumas among his staff, and in his own personal history. Continue reading A Quaker In Conflict, Outer and Inner: Damned if He Speaks, Damned If He Doesn’t. Meanwhile, There’s Work To Do.