The Mission Impossible Edition
Annyeong from Seoul. Thanks for letting me into your inbox!
What I Read
As Tom Cruise goes on tour to promote the latest Mission: Impossible, no one has dared to ask him about Scientology, even though he's THE celeb evangelist for a church that's allegedly responsible for child neglect and slave labor. Unrelated, in Canada, tiger parenting went horribly, murderously wrong.
There's this nugget on the complexities — and the trade consequences — of whether kimchi is classified as "pickled" or not. A food critic penned an ode to the simplicity and perfection of chicken tenders. And check out Buzz Aldrin's expense report for when he went to the moon. (LV: Cape Kennedy, Fla. ARR: Moon).
What I'm Watching
The Academy Award-nominated documentary Last Days of Vietnam is a searing look at the failed mission in Vietnam, but the director found some nobility amid the ruins when Saigon fell in 1975. You can rent it on iTunes. It's worth the $4.99.
What I Wrote
Since I'm not writing as much as usual, the kimchi story above reminded me of one of my more memorable NPR pieces from 2014 -- the time I looked into whether a burrito was considered a sandwich. If you're more into podcasts, there's also the longer podcast version of this story reported for Planet Money.
Endorsements
1) Going Clear, Alex Gibney's documentary (based on a book by Lawrence Wright) about scientology, its psychologically troubled founder and the human rights abuses on its members.
2) The Instagram account of Wong Maye-E, who has some access to the hermit kingdom of North Korea.
Fun Fact
Ninety high-speed chases in Calif. started when police tried to stop someone for driving too slowly.
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Kamsahabnida! (That's thank you, in Korean).
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