‘Korean Zombie’ says UFC needs to show more sensitivity toward Asians

Chan Sung Jung is a cult favorite among MMA fans for his courageous and aggressive fighting style. When it comes to issues he cares about, the featherweight contender is just as committed outside the cage as he is inside it.

Earlier this year, the “Korean Zombie” sent an open letter to Georges St. Pierre, in an attempt to educate and chastise the welterweight champ for wearing a gi to the ring before his fight against Nick Diaz that had the rising sun symbol – a symbol used on the World War II Japanese war-time flag. Jung pointed out that to many people in Asian countries, the rising sun symbol brought up memories of atrocities committed by Japan during the second world war and that using the symbol was akin to someone using a Nazi swastika.

Jung’s letter made a difference. St. Pierre issued an apology to those offended and the maker of the gi also apologized and decided not to take the gi to market.

Viewers of this season’s Ultimate Fighter may have noticed bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey wearing a T-shirt sold by the UFC that also features the rising sun symbol, on a Pride Fighting Championships T-shirt. In response, Jung has written and sent out another letter, this time to one of his biggest fans – UFC president Dana White – asking that the UFC be more sensitive to what the symbol means to Koreans and others.

Bleacher Report obtained a copy of Jung’s letter. Here’s an excerpt from it.

“We have decided to take the time to speak up for what we know is right, because we do believe this is something that UFC management should absolutely be aware of. Let's get straight to the point.

It's about 'Rising Sun Flag' outfits. And our point is that this design is the symbol of war crimes, and that every single item designed after this symbol of war crimes should be kicked out of the UFC, firstly for justice, and then for the company.

... Let bygones be bygones? Get over it? Unjustified invasion, torture, massacre, military and sexual slavery, medical experiments on living prisoners of war and many other war crimes scarred too many people. It can never be forgotten. This is a tragic history for all of us. Furthermore, the Japanese government never gave a sincere apology, and is even trying to justify and distort their dirty, nasty history. Still to this day, so many victims are dying in pain, heartbroken, without being properly compensated.

... I was happy because I thought we have succeeded in educating a chunk of the world on a very important issue, and that we no longer have to see that symbol of war crimes, at least around the Octagon. But a few days later, another UFC champion and the symbol of [women's mixed martial arts], Ronda Rousey was seen in that 'Rising Sun Flag' outfit. Two UFC champions wearing the symbol of war crimes! Don't you think this will be an awful example for our company, which actually does a lot of charity stuff for troops as well?

This sport, mixed martial arts, is growing very fast. And on the top of everything is the UFC. It's been crossing borders with great ease. The event was a great success in Europe, Australia and Brazil, and now it's time for Asia. As a fighter, I'm really excited and happy to see the sport growing, but I don't even want to imagine UFC fighters in those outfits, especially in Asia. A lot of furious, heartbroken people will boycott the UFC, leading to a loss of a lot of (potential) fans, which will end up leaving a very bad impression on the Asian market. I mean, can you imagine our fighters in Nazi outfits in Europe? For us Asians, it’s nothing different.”

The UFC indeed is attempting to grow in Asian countries and Jung brings up an interesting point. Does enough of Asia agree with Jung about the symbolism of the rising sun emblem that it could hurt the UFC’s reputation in countries like South Korea?

We don’t ourselves know the answer but we’re glad anytime a thoughtful discussion about history and society arise in sports. So far, the UFC has not issued a formal response to Jung’s letter.

If you’ve got an interesting take on the issue, let us know in the comments section.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/korean-zombie-says-ufc-needs-show-more-sensitivity-185751004--mma.html
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AP PHOTOS: 30 years after Marine barracks blast

FILE -This Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983 file photo shows the aftermath of a suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast _ the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II _ claimed the lives of 241 American service members. It was the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II. (AP Photo/Jim Bourdier, File)

FILE -This Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983 file photo shows the aftermath of a suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast _ the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II _ claimed the lives of 241 American service members. It was the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II. (AP Photo/Jim Bourdier, File)

COMBO - This combination of two photographs shows the aftermath of a suicide truck bomb attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon on Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983, top, and the site of the blast as seen 30 years later on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. The blast _ the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II _ claimed the lives of 241 American service members. It was the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II. (AP Photo/Mark Foley, Bilal Hussein)

FILE - In this Oct. 23, 1983 file photo, British soldiers give a hand in rescue operations at the site of the bomb-wrecked U.S. Marine command center near the Beirut airport, Lebanon. A bomb-laden truck drove into the center collapsing the entire four story building. The blast _ the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II _ claimed the lives of 241 American service members. (AP Photo/Bill Foley, File)

FILE - This Oct. 23, 23, 1983 file photo shows the scene around the U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut airport following a massive bomb blast that destroyed the base, in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast _ the single deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II _ claimed the lives of 241 American service members.(AP Photo, File)

FILE - This Oct. 23, 1983, file photo shows the scene of a truck bombing on a U.S. Marine base near Beirut airport in Beirut, Lebanon. This was a rock-solid structure that had withstood Israeli air and artillery attack during the Israeli invasion of 1982. Yet it had been blown to pieces by a truck bomb that exploded just before 6:30 a.m. that day, with the force of 21,000 pounds of TNT.(AP Photo, File)

It had been a massive, four-story building that had withstood air strikes and artillery — now reduced to a mountain of rubble. Enormous chunks of concrete, their twisted steel reinforcements ripped bare, balanced precariously on piles of debris. Only cracked concrete frames on the ground floor bore any semblance to what had stood there before.

As I watched crews struggle to remove wreckage from what remained of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, I thought to myself, "My God. How did anyone survive?"

The Oct. 23, 1983 truck bombing that leveled the barracks near Beirut's airport claimed the lives of 241 American service members in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces abroad since World War II. The attack, amid Lebanon's civil war, was one of the United States' first experiences with the suicide bombings that over the past 30 years have become a trademark of Islamic militants.

By the time I arrived, the bodies were gone, and survivors evacuated. The day of the blast, I was in Cairo, where I was The Associated Press' bureau chief, and I traveled to Beirut in the immediate aftermath.

For me the shock was all the more intense because I had known that building — and doubtless some of the Marines who had perished inside.

During repeated assignments in Lebanon, I spent hours on the barracks' roof, along with other journalists, observing militias on the hills above hit their rivals and sometimes the Marines with artillery fire.

I recall watching visiting Marine generals scurrying for cover one afternoon when militias lobbed mortar shells near their convoy — to the amusement of some younger Marines.

The roof was also the site of the Marines' link to a radio network with the French and British to exchange information about battles around Beirut. If you could tolerate the blazing sun and long periods of boredom, it was a great place to track the fighting.

The structure — once an administrative building for the airport — was rock-solid. It had survived hits by Israeli air and artillery fire in 1982, well before the Marines moved in.

Yet it was pulverized by a truck bomb that exploded with the force of 21,000 pounds of TNT just before 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Minutes later, a second suicide bomber blasted the French military barracks a few miles north, killing 58 paratroopers and the wife and four children of the Lebanese janitor.

Shiite militias that were just starting to coalesce into what is now Hezbollah were behind the attacks.

The Marines, along with French and British troops, arrived in Beirut in August 1982. The Marines were to supervise the evacuation of Palestinian guerrillas under a deal to end Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

Instead, the experience became a textbook example of "mission creep."

After the Palestinians departed, the Marines did as well. But they were ordered back about two weeks later when the assassination of Lebanon's new Christian president sparked new fighting among the country's factions.

Syrian-backed militias frequently fired on the Marines' base and barracks, about 10 miles from downtown Beirut, to pressure the United States, which supported the Lebanese government.

A month before the bombing, U.S. warships fired on Syrian-backed militias, and French jets attacked militias in the Bekaa Valley.

Among anti-government factions, those attacks shattered any notion of neutrality.

The Marine commander, Col. Timothy Geraghty, recalled telling his staff that "we were going to pay in blood."

Within months after the bombing, the U.S. Marines were out of Lebanon. The civil war raged for another seven years.

Now on the site of the barracks is a large building of the Lebanese mail service, Liban Post, inside a closed military zone near the airport. On one side, access is barred by a military checkpoint and on the other, by a checkpoint of Hezbollah, now Lebanon's most powerful force.

The following is a gallery of images from the time of the Marine barracks bombing and today.

____

Robert H. Reid, Berlin bureau chief, was chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Cairo from 1982-1986 and has covered Middle East events since 1978. Follow him at: http://twitter.com/rhreid .

Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-23-Lebanon-Marine%20Bombing-Photo%20Essay/id-978d88691e4a4ea29928ecf6f3a27201
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Iron Man Is Adopted: What Does The Reveal Mean For Marvel's Movies?

Will Tony Stark's comic book brother take over for Robert Downey Jr. in the Marvel movie-verse?


By Alex Zalben

Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1716036/iron-man-adopted-brother-marvel-movies.jhtml

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Pulse Will Become A One-Stop Content Shop For LinkedIn, Using LinkedIn Profile Logins To Serve Content Curated For Your Profession

LinkedIn today is presenting an update on its mobile strategy, and as part of that, its parted the curtain a bit to show us how its planning to integrate Pulse into its platform. (Pulse, if you recall, was acquired for some $90 million in April of this year.) Ankit Gupta, Pulse’s co-founder said it would become the “content brand” for LinkedIn. As part of that, the app will start to offer users the ability for people to log in with their LinkedIn identities to receive recommended stories, and it will start to incorporate content from influencers.

The idea is that Pulse will be not just a place to read news, but a place for people to read news tailored to their professional lives. “We will be bringing better content experiences to empower users throughout their day and their careers,” he said. The app will be released later this year, Gupta said.

The concept of a single sign on and a user’s identity that will be used outside of LinkedIn’s own platform is an interesting one: it’s also something that LinkedIn’s acquisition of Rapportive is exploring with its new LinkedIn Intro app for iPhone. Currently invitation-only, Intro is effectively Rapportive gone mobile. It examines correspondence through your native iPhone mail app and then provides more insight into the sender and other content in the message.

LinkedIn today also announced a new a new iPad app that it says underscores its new approach to mobile with an updated feed with more visual images and video, as well incorporating its rebuilt search engine, introduced earlier this year on the desktop.

The company said that some 38% of all traffic is on mobile, and next year LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner said today that LinkedIn will cross its “mobile moment,” where mobile traffic will surpass that of desktop traffic.

The company has been on personalization tear over the last year, with improved search, more features in its mobile apps — including the ability to upload and edit resumes and apply for jobs, and a separate app to manage contacts — and updates of its user home page, LinkedIn Today, to include curated content (a place where we can expect more to come from its Pulse acquisition). The idea will be to ensnare all verticals as it goes on. One of these, to target universities in an effort started in August, now already has some 1,500 universities on board, Weiner said.

This is done with what the company says is a hands-off approach, with echoes of Google in its description of its philosophy on search than Facebook or Apple and their ecosystems. “We’d like there to be a professional profile for every one of the 3 billion-plus professional people in the world today,” said Weiner, “and then we’d like to step away.” He and LinkedIn see this as a potential economic boost.

“How is mobile allowing us to reinvent LinkedIn?” Weiner asked today. “The expectations of our users today is that those applications are going to continue to evolve… We can’t just take the desktop experience and port it over to mobile.” This includes taking into account screensize as well as user expectations and the need for users to find information faster.

During the presentation today Deep Nicer, SVP of Products and User Experience, admitted some of what LinkedIn learned along the way: from launching its first iPhone app in 2010, it thought it had everything sewn up. “Ten months later we had to completely rewrite it,” he said. And then it had to do it again, and again. That’s including needing to continue to staff and train existing staff to think and act mobile-first. That has included not just coding at the back end, but in terms of rethinking design.

“The magic of mobile is keeping simple simple. I have a five-second rule,” noted Kiran Prasad, Senior Director, Mobile Engineering. He noted that there is no way of putting the 500-odd distinct pages that LinkedIn offers on desktop into its mobile app. It’s a step away from trying to achieve parity in a single site, and a move towards a multiple-app strategy.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LoJB2-__tCc/
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Wayne Kramer On World Cafe

Courtesy of the artist

Wayne Kramer.

Courtesy of the artist

• "I'm Free" by The Who


• "Ramblin' Rose" by MC5


• "Kick Out the Jams" by MC5

For the whys and whos of Detroit's Sense of Place in rock history, World Cafe host David Dye talks with Motor City music icon Wayne Kramer. In the 1960s, Kramer co-founded the MC5, the loud, passionate, radical rock band that served as the foundation of much of the Detroit rock that came later.

In this session, Kramer provides insight into how the economic woes of the city — and the consequent rise in crime — affected the music scene. He also describes the scene at the Grande Ballroom when shouts of "Kick out the jams!" led to the MC5's best-known song.

The rock veteran also takes some time to discuss his charity Jail Guitar Doors USA, which he founded with musician Billy Bragg to provide instruments for incarcerated musicians.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/WorldCafe/2013/10/22/239744515/wayne-kramer-on-world-cafe?ft=1&f=1039
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Taylor Swift Pulls In Some BIG Country Stars For CMA Performance! Find Out Who's Performing Red With Her HERE!

Pulling in some big names, we see!

Looks like Taylor Swift, queen of awards shows, will be performing a special version of her song Red with some HUGE country music names!

Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, bassist Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, and percussionist Eric Darken will join the country cutie on stage during the Country Music Awards on November 6!

Sounds like it's gonna be a real good country-filled time! We can't wait!!

In addition to TSwift's performance, Jason Mraz will also be performing with Hunter Hayes and the Foo Fighters will be playing alongside Zac Brown Band!

Sounds like a cool fusion of country meets contemporary! So cool!!

We wonder when Swifty will start performing Sweeter Than Fiction on the awards circuit! Hopefully soon!

Maybe we'll see her perform it at the Oscars! Ya know, when she wins her Oscar along with Meryl Streep for her role in The Giver!?!

LOLz!!! Ya never know!

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: abc, alison strauss, awards, band, bassist, blake shelton, brad paisley, carrie underwood, country, country music, country music awards, cutie, foo fighters, huge, inspiration, jason aldean, jason mraz, music, music minute, nashville, nominations, nominees, november, on stage, perform, performance, performing, queen, red, singer, song, special, swifty, taylor swift, version, vince gill

Source: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-23-taylor-swift-performance-country-music-awards-alison-krauss-vince-gill-cmas
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Apple unveils the 1-pound iPad Air with a 9.7-inch Retina display: shipping November 1st for $499

Speaking at today's launch event in San Francisco, Phil Schiller announced the next iteration of the company's tablet. It's thinner, lighter and more powerful -- hence the new name: the iPad Air. (No more of that "new iPad" nonsense.) And Cupertino takes that moniker seriously; this slate weighs ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/vn7d1iCOaGQ/
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