Quotation of the day

Don¡¯t turn off the light. My son is coming to see me in the dark. (Shin Yong-Mun, a visitor from North Korea for a family reunion on Friday at Hotel Lotte World in Seoul, quoting from a poem written by his mother before her death and delivered to his brother in the South when the two met. The quotation was meant to express the depths of the late mother¡¯s sorrow at her long separation from her son.)

I think they're going to be very cautious about what I call my-father's-Oldsmobile syndrome, the idea that this is just Bush Two, or a retread. (Stephen Hess, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in an interview with Los Angeles Times on Thursday pointing to the roster of would-be cabinet members under Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush, many of whom were drawn from those who had served under his father.)

It seems that Yoido is in a state of siege these days. (A donga.com netizen on Friday, commenting on the news of the prosecution's clampdowns on rumor-mongering on the local bourse, scaring away investors and brokers.)

This is just a rehearsal to provide against a big disaster to descend upon us sooner or later. (The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia on Friday reporting on the thousands of residents of Papua New Guinea, an archipelago in northern Oceania, who sought refuge in hilly areas to avoid rising water levels caused by global warming.)