NORTH KOREA

Our friend, Kim Joohoon, tried to bring me up to speed on facts about both Koreas, bless his heart. We hear so little truth about North Korea that it was an eye-opener for me.

North Korea was “richer” than South Korea until 1970. From the early days of the Japanese occupation that started around 1900 (I don’t remember the exact dates), the Japanese recognized the natural wealth of the North. That is where the rivers are, the minerals, coal, farms, the stuff that feeds a civilization. Grand sums of capital were invested in the North during the occupation which ended, of course, as WWII ended. Meanwhile, the South was mountains and a small strip along the coast with fishing villages.

President Trump said there was no need to continue the summit as Chairman Kim Jong Un wanted too much. There was no common ground. This is, in my experience, how negotiations go. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

In the press conference, President Trump spoke of his regret that there was no way to proceed. He said that North Korea had so much potential and he would like nothing better than to lift the sanctions. Now if Kerry and Obama were in charge, would we proceed to get some sort of thing like the Iran Deal? It is difficult to get information, though, as the press is more interested in Cohen and AOC.

Speaking of the Japanese occupation, read about the Rape of Nanking to discover what kind of brutality the Japanese dumped on their subjects. Koreans alive today have parents and grandparents that were slaves. It ended within my life time…barely, but still within my life.

Another factoid that I think we have talked about on this forum is the way the US helped South Korea leap out of the disaster that was the Korean War. We needed help on the ground in Viet Nam, and paid South Korea significant sums to provide troops and goods. In most emerging economies, from Eastern Europe to Africa, wave some cash and the rulers start opening up Swiss bank accounts. Park Chung Hee was undoubtedly a dictator although we prefer to call him “an experienced president,” but he took the money and invested it in heavy industry, ship building, automobiles and the like. Outfits like Samsung, Hyundai and others are the result. Admirable.

Don’t count Trump out. This shines a brutal spotlight on the idiocy of Chairman Kim. Even China is getting a bit impatient with his petulance. We’ll see.

DRUG PRICING

Everybody is bashing the drug companies, about the only time we have heard House Democrats, Senate Republicans and Donald Trump agree on anything.

https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/goto/evaluate/news/basicNewsStory.jhtml?symbols=ABBV&storyid=201902261145RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_L1N20L117_1

Any kind of medication is anathema to me—my preference would be to never take medicine again. That is not a reasonable strategy, however, if you want to prolong your life and have good quality to it. For example, my friend has rheumatoid arthritis, and when he took Humira for 6 years, he found himself to be “normal.” Humira quit working eventually, the RA attacked his lungs, he had a transplant and is now on anti-rejection meds that will prolong his life further. He has a tremendous brain, it is not only good for him and his family, but for society that his life has been prolonged.

My dad died of the complications of multiple myeloma. They treated him with steroids and he lasted about 6 years from diagnosis to death. Another friend was diagnosed with MM 30 years later, and he perished 14 years after diagnosis. Another eight years due to a drug that was roundly condemned by EVERYONE, and rightfully so—thalidomide. Well, he called it “Son of Thalidomide” as it is a slight variation, but many of us will remember the checkered past of that drug. For those of you who don’t know:

·         Invented by German company in 1961

·         Marketed as sleep aid for pregnant women (seemed to treat morning sickness, too?)

·         Caused thousands of babies to be born with tragically deformed limbs

·         A horror show

Now, over a half-century later, with another drug, it is used for leprosy and for MM. My friend said that the precautions warned that women who may become pregnant should not even TOUCH one of the pills.

The drug companies claim they spend billions of dollars on research and development, and the process of getting a drug tested and ready for market is made more complicated, expensive and difficult because of the tragedy of thalidomide and others. Congress, the President and damned near everybody else wants the drugs to be nearly free, despite the obvious impediments.

I know this is leaning into the wind, but a lot of this looks like political theater. None of those politicians want one of their loved ones to be denied medications that work. But we would prefer that they just materialize out of thin air.

Again a discussion where I have little or no background and should just be quiet, but that hasn’t stopped me yet. Wonder how much those folks would pay to find a cure for ALS and MS? Hope a couple of my correspondents who do have background in medicine/pharmacy enlighten me.

OPPY

The little Mars rover, Opportunity, designed to operate for about 90 days, continued through skill and determination on the part of the operators and the engineering built into her for nearly 15 years.

But a dust storm evidently got her. Her last words, “My battery is low and it is getting dark.”

Remarkable work.

As the years pass by, those words apply to some of us.

POST SCRIPT, August 2020: I just discovered that Snopes labeled this communication from Oppy as "False." Seems that it came through the space from the planet Mars as a bunch of pluses and minuses and was then translated into a bunch of data. The little lady didn't actually speak in a voice and say those exact words, instead the words are the human interpretation of her data. Did anyone actually think she spoke those exact words? Snopes can be pretty dense sometimes.