The President of My Dreams

Have you ever heard of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf?  This woman is the president of my dreams, although I must agree that she is much better suited to be the president of Liberia than the president of America.  She officially arrived in office in January 2006, but she has been active in Liberian politics for much longer than that.  She worked in the ministry of Finance for Liberian President Tolbert during the 1970's eventually taking the position of Minister of Finance until his overthrow in 1980.  She fled into exile, worked for citibank, became a senator(1985, thank you wikipedia), went to prison, fled to Washington D.C., and worked for the World Bank (Maybe I will get to work for them someday, but I don't know if they are my style.  I'll learn more as my education progresses)  Now she is back for good, and she is The Iron Lady of Africa.  She is an economist with the educational background to prove it.  I would have to say, beyond getting elected in the first place, her greatest accomplishment that I know of is that, with her respect in the western world, her solid economic planning, and just a hint of charisma, she has managed to get the IMF (International Monetary Fund, the World Bank of Europe) to forgive all of Liberia's debts.  I love you Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf!!!  You make Obama look backwards!  But perhaps I just see foreign inspirational leaders the way foreigners see Obama, with rose-colored glasses.

Japanese Imperialism? Turtle Ships to the Rescue!

My interest in history is all over the place.  One aspect of history that really interests me is the history of sailing ships.  The funny thing is that this interest puzzles me because I feel like I should find it boring when I find it quite the opposite.  One really interesting aspect of naval history is the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592.

A newly united Japan invaded with the intention of first conquering Korea, then China, and then India.  Pretty ambitious, but the Koreans had no intention of letting them get through.  The Japanese with their many guns made landfall and began to win the land war, however a korean admiral named Yi Sun Sin(left) crushed the Japanese navy again and again and again until the Japanese couldn't maintain the land war anymore.  One major factor in his crushing blows to the Japanese was a ship that he himself designed and had built while running a korean naval district called Gobuk Son, hangul(korean) for Turtle Ship.

Turtle ships are no small feat to naval historians.  These ships were fully covered with a shell (Hence Turtle), had a huge indoor staff that operated in cramped conditions like a submarine, and generally packed 60 fighting marines for boarding after ramming.  They also carried cannons but made for peculiar flagships (The Flagship would be the strongest military ship in a war fleet) as they were designed for ramming enemy ships and breaking lines.  Backed by Panokseon ships which were often armed with up to 4 times as many cannons as the inferior japanese ships, these ships wreaked glorious havoc on the Japanese invaders.  Scholars have spent much time (Particularly patriotic Korean scholars) debating whether or not Turtle Ships were the first Ironclads.  An ironclad is a naval ship that has iron plating, and represents the transition from wooden navies, to modern navies.  The Koreans may have been the first to put metal armor on ships, but the debate centers around whether it was iron plating or just iron spikes.  One advantage of the shell, iron-plated or not, was that you could not board a turtle ship, they could only board you.  in addition they had oars (like the panokseon) that allowed them to operate in shallower waters and made them more maneuverable than their japanese opponents.  All in all, my favorite ship in all of naval history, kudos Admiral Yi.

Anastazi's Station Cafe

I have a weakness for local shops, particularly once I get to know the owners.  I find myself dodging chains on a daily basis.  I have to admit, over the summer I have found arguably my favorite small business in the Philadelphia and Boston region.  There is this amazing coffee shop that appears extremely stoic from the outside but warm and artistic on the inside.  On the first day I went there, which is a story itself (I hadn't slept all night, and while I waited for the coffee shop to open, I got lost in the graveyard while it poured torrential rain on me) I fell in love with the owners, a married couple Steve and Anastazi, aka Aiza, aka Stazi.  I like to call her Stazi because then I can endearingly call the owners "Steve and Stazi."  They make excellent coffee (Equal to the coffee I had with the Italians in the North End of Boston, although the italians had better pastries and were more expensive) in addition to Italian Sodas in any flavor you can dream up.  So delicious, I am there for coffee all the time.

Now I would like to say, none of these pictures can do this cafe justice.  It really is a living piece.  The owners put so much time and thought into it, there are at least five beautiful pieces of art in there that I can think of off the top of my head (Brass Plant, Tyler School of Art Wall Fixture, Artistic Mirror, Stainglass Celtic Knot, Clock fixture) in addition to the fact that in order for them to get the cafe just the way they wanted it, Steve and Stazi handmade their own tables.  Did you catch that?  They decided to make their own stone tables and let me say, when I brought my Kyomunim there they immediately said "How Buddhist this cafe is!"  I must agree Reverend Hwang.

Steve (Picture to the left) is an extremely social and amicable personality whose family hails from Germany (I wouldn't have guessed) and he has this really endearing laugh that is difficult to explain but it would best be described as if the show "Carebears" had a villain on it, he would laugh like steve.  Wow, that still doesn't work but what are you gonna do, you gotta hear it.

Stazi (Below, haha) is a Puerto Rican New Yorker who is a self-described nerd.  She lives for the renaissance fair and has told me about her collection of ten swords.  She has her own little library and is an avid reader (Recently picking up my favorite fantasy book, Game of Thrones).  Before she was a cafe co-owner, she was a real estate agent.  She has a tude to boot and can break down anyone's walls with her shining personality.  Might I add, she likes to brag how one of her best customers is a Starbucks manager who needs "Real Coffee" she says.  She is a coffee expert and drinks about four cups a day herself.  Kudos guys for an excellent cafe!