South Korea’s growing obsession with plastic surgery became apparent when pictures of a group of aspiring beauty queens posted online prompted claims that cosmetic procedures have left all the contestants looking the same.
Pictures of the 20 Miss Korea 2013 finalists were posted on Reddit fueling speculation that many of them had undergone surgery and prompting users to criticize the Asian nation’s growing trend to go under the knife.
South Koreans currently have more plastic surgery than in any other country according to recent figures, with the craze particularly popular among 19 to 49-year-olds.
Now that’s impressive. There is an established perspective of beauty here, and already beautiful women are eager to have their faces cut up to achieve this idea of perfection.
Let’s get a better comparison of the contestants:
Same eyes, same nose, same mouth.
This reminds me of the Sonmi 451 character in “Cloud Atlas“
This is science fiction, and the cloning here creates a series of identical beings, which also removes the concept of individuality. And at a certain point in the movie, Sonmi 451 recognizes the importance of individuality, and leads a revolution.
But here, we’re going in an opposite direction. We see in today’s reality, people are eager to turn themselves into clones. It’s not just in Korea. Plastic surgery is huge business in America. Sometimes people go too far:
For the 57th year in a row, my invitation to the White House Correspondents Dinner got lost in the mail. The president of the United States spoke, as usual. Here’s what we missed:
Daniel Day Lewis makes a pretty good young strapping Muslim Socialist.
Mark Sanford, a Republican, was South Carolina’s governor from 2003 to 2011. For six days in 2009, he disappeared. No one knew where he was. Not his security detail. Not his family. When he reappeared, he told the state that he had gone on a hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was a lie. He was with his mistress in South America. On state expense. He’s an adulterer, and he said this wasn’t the only time he had cheated on his wife.
This year, he decided to run for Congress. On the night he won the Republican nomination, he introduced his young son to his mistress. On stage. In front of supporters.
That’s his son, not looking at his father or his father’s mistress.
Mark Sanford is a douche bag.
Recently, the douche bag held a debate with a cardboard cutout of California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi:
I hope the people of South Carolina realize that the cardboard cutout has more integrity than Mark Sanford.
Now, Sanford isn’t running against the cardboard cutout of Nancy Pelosi. Oddly, South Carolina doesn’t cardboard cutouts file papers to run in elections. Just empty suits.
His opponent is Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch. She’s Stephen Colbert’s sister. She has more integrity than Mark Sanford. We’ll see if South Carolinians prefer integrity (with an occasional visiting infusion of comic genius) or a lying adulterous scumbag.
Anyone who’s watched Russ knows he can do some amazing things with the basketball. (Look at all the games he led the team in points.) But we also know he can do some amazingly stupid things with the basketball. (Look at the five overtime loss against Notre Dame.) Russ seriously thought about entering the NBA draft, and I’m sure the general managers were looking at the stupid things.
I was at the national championship against Michigan in Atlanta game and screamed “No, Russ!” when Louisville was up by eight with 2:36 left and a fresh 35-second shot clock, and Russ put up a bad shot from beyond the three-point line. All he had to do was hold onto the ball, let the clock run down and set up a play for a better shot. I just kept thinking, “If Louisville loses, this is where it happened.”
Plus, I suspect he also didn’t want to leave Louisville after the disappointing game he had in the national championship. Only nine points, and lots of bad shots, including the one above.
The extra year under Coach Rick Pitino should add a lot more maturity to Russ’s game. And look at the team they’ll have. Three starters returning: Russ Smith, Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshire. The Final Four MVP Luke Hancock is back. Kevin Ware’s leg will be healed. Two departing starters, but Montrezl Harrell is back at forward or center, and a really good recruiting class is coming up.
And if things go right, Russ gets into his third Final Four, and has a chance to defend the national championship. Put it all together, and that makes him a definite first round draft choice in 2014.
In the meantime, let’s wallow in the 2013 victory, with Dick Vitale and the ESPN America feed out of the U.K.
