Students' Right to Dress Freely

Last week I had the opportunity to see a very interesting presentation about students’ rights. To me the most interesting thing was the debate on whether or not students have to wear school uniform.

In my opinion, students should be able to wear what they would like to wear. Students need to be comfortable and happy so that they may learn and enjoy their learning environment. However, I do acknowledge that some people choose to dress in ways which cross a reasonable boundary. For example, some girls will wear 2 inch miniskirts and try to pass them off as proper clothing. I also believe that shirts that say it’s cool to do drugs or shirts that have pornographic images on them should not be worn. However, alcohol and cigarette ad shirts aren’t as bad in my opinion because there are some nice looking t-shirts that advertise a type of liquor that are pretty cool looking.

Schools telling someone that they're not allowed to wear the clothing you wish to wear(with restrictions) is in violation of student’s rights. There are also instances in which a person attends a school which has no official dress code. Then, half way through the school year, that school chooses to enact and enforce a new official dress code which requires students to dress differently than they have been. In my opinion, that situation also violates the rights of students. But, I do NOT believe it violates a student's rights if that student registers for school and signs a document in which they acknowledge that they understand that they will be required to comply with an official dress code.

I think that school dress codes are unfair. You shouldn't be told what to wear if it’s your body. If the faculty has a problem with the way you dress tell them to go buy your clothes, Because most teens do buy their own clothes. If they bought them they should be able to wear them when they please.  

Problems Regarding Minimal Wage

Saturday, 22 October 2011

 

Problems Regarding Minimal Wage

After hearing last weeks’ presentation I found out that the single largest problem with minimum wage increases is that they result in job losses, because they increase labour costs for employers who respond by reducing the number of employees and/or the number of hours they work.

However I disagree with this because reasonably a minimum wage only has impact (negative or positive) at the same level that any price floor has an impact, that of above the natural market price. Then, the greater the market distortion the greater the impact. I suppose that it would be more precise to say that a meaningful minimum wage is a job killer, since anything below the market rate would be irrelevant (which is why lower income people are impacted the most).

So, to suggest that “a minimum wage” kills jobs doesn’t actually mean anything. What figure are we talking about? 1000won? Like so many arguments, there’s a built in assumption about where we are now that isn’t based on any sort of reality. Minimum wages have been chipped away at through inflation over the past few decades and there hasn’t been an appreciable rise in employment because of it.

I do however disagree with the whole idea of Big Mac index. So, it suggests that the minimum wage should at least be high enough to buy a Big Mac set, which is considered to be equivalent to a proper meal. But as far as I know the minimum wage in Korea is about 4100won, and that is sufficient to buy at least one meal(I’m not talking about fancy course dinners here).

Preference of imported Pork in South Korea

 

Recently I read an article which said that an independent blind taste test of pork from around the world conducted recently by a leading South Korean magazine and it took me by surprise, at least for the Korean participants and the competition sponsors.

The team consisted of two five-person Korean panels consisting of food bloggers and meat industry professionals, and they gave U.S. pork very high marks.  In addition, several of the respondents were surprised when they learned that the pork samples they favoured came from the United States of America rather than domestic Korean farms.

I was surprised to know that U.S. pork was rated highly in both the frozen and frozen categories, after the meat industry professionals revealed their choices. For the competition they selected collar butt and single-ribbed belly(used to make 삼겹살), which are the most popular pork cuts among Korean consumers, both at home and when dining out.  Frozen meat samples came from several countries.  Chilled meat samples consisted of two domestic Korean brands and U.S. brands.

To ensure a fair comparison, they took steps to minimise differences in freshness amongst the samples due to time in distribution, using only samples that were less than 20 days after they were being imported.

The panel of meat industry professionals gave high marks to both frozen and fresh U.S. pork, but the hosts of the competition mentioned a conflict between the professionals’ taste buds and their national pride. The interesting part was that the evaluation on personal liking, which was different before and after disclosing the countries of origin.  In the case of chilled pork, U.S. pork scored high before revealing the countries of origin.  However, after the countries of origin and prices were revealed, domestic branded pork scored higher.  These findings show that the professionals have some amount of emotional preference for domestic brands.

In conclusion I would like to end by saying that maybe the reason why majority of the people prefer imported pork is not just because of the price, but it also has something to do with the quality of the meat.

(Thank you for reading =D , please leave a comment)

Problems with the Construction of Naval Base in Gangjeong Village, Jeju.

I have been to Gangjeong village, and it was one of the most beautiful place that I have ever seen , so I was surprised to know that it is suffering from the Jeju naval base construction. Even though I have read about it in the newspaper before, but I was unaware that the construction had already begun.

It is so obvious how unreasonable it is to construct the naval base in this place where there is abundant fertile farmland with good-quality water running along Gangjeong stream and with various endangered animal species. It is so clear in Gangjeong village how the construction tore the village community up which was once beautiful and peaceful, and how the villagers are protesting against the construction at the risk of their lives.

However, I heard that the South Korean government and the navy are still obstinate about this. They have Encompassed the village with hundreds of policemen and fence, and they have forcefully restarted the construction. They are knocking down any protest movement by arresting villagers and activists and abusing governmental

authority.

First, I thought that this should be acquiesced for the sake of national interests. However, I learned that for national interests, the base construction must be stopped because the base would ruin not only the beautiful and peaceful natural community but also relations between South Korea and China. I heard that one of the main reasons why the government and the navy mention to justify the naval base construction, is the protection of Socotra rock located between southern sea of Jeju Island and the East China Sea. But I think it’s such a dangerous and foolish idea which makes 'uncertain thereat' to 'certain threat'. Besides, China is also one of Korea’s strongest trade partners, so I think it’s also important to maintain good relationship with them.