Scum

BEIJING - Jang Song Taek, the uncle by marriage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was executed for attempting to seize power for himself, the official news service reported early Friday. In a rambling report, the Korea Central News Agency denounced the "despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog," and said he had attempted to "overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power. " PHOTOS: Kim Jong Un uncle labeled traitor The execution, after a trial this week by a military tribunal, is the most public purge of a top echelon official in North Korea in decades and raises concern about the increasingly erratic leadership of 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, believed to be the world's youngest head of state.

BEIJING - Jang Song Taek, the uncle by marriage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was executed for attempting to seize power for himself, the official news service reported early Friday. In a rambling report, the Korea Central News Agency denounced the "despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog," and said he had attempted to "overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power. " PHOTOS: Kim Jong Un uncle labeled traitor The execution, after a trial this week by a military tribunal, is the most public purge of a top echelon official in North Korea in decades and raises concern about the increasingly erratic leadership of 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, believed to be the world's youngest head of state.

Tell you what, as soon as there are sensible controls on speech and the press, I'll support sensible controls on guns. Contrary to the mountain of lies told by the anti-gun crowd, the Second Amendment was not created to protect gun hunters' right to hunt, but to protect the citizen from the parasitical scum called government. Government is, was, and always will be the enemy of mankind. STEVE TEZBER Pomona

Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean official to defect from the isolationist regime, was found dead from a suspected heart attack here Sunday ? his death from apparent natural causes coming after numerous assassination attempts by Pyongyang, officials here said. He was 87. For more than a decade after his defection in 1997, Hwang was North Korea's public enemy No. 1, repeatedly referred to as "human scum" in the regime's state-controlled media. Hwang, a former senior member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party who taught ideology to leader Kim Jong Il, was known as the chief architect of North Korea's guiding "juche" philosophy of self-reliance.

In the 20th Century, hundreds of thousands of our best and bravest young men have died in wars. In addition, a couple of million other men, women, and children have died in auto accidents alone. So why should we now agonize over the death penalty for the small number of murderers who are the scum of the earth? They gave their victims no endless appeals and "due process." MICHAEL KLEIN Santa Barbara

Re "Energy Antics: Oh, Behave!" May 25: Your editorial is very timely and much needed. In our current environment of talk radio, 24-hour news cycles and the damaging need to raise obscene amounts of money for the nation's business of politics, it seems that decency and manners are lost in the debate. We should all remember an old saying, "Stew the pot and scum will rise to the top." That law of nature still applies. Roy A. Fassel Los Angeles

Today's sordid story of inveterate child molester ex-Father Porter underscores the incredible idiocy of organized religion--which sets groups of humans against each other, causes the blindly devout to act contrary to their own interests (endless tithing, for example), and gives such salacious scum as Porter the power and prestige to tarnish many youthful lives. To paraphrase Karl Marx (who, on this subject, at least, was eminently correct): Religion is the opiate--and the ruination--of the masses.

I find articles like the one from Purcell totally abhorrent. The Nicaraguan Contras have shown themselves to be cowards and amoral scum, killing women, children, and unarmed men without remorse. The elected leaders of Nicaragua act to prevent another CIA-backed fiasco like the one in Chile and Purcell advocates turning the Contra animals loose to butcher again. I have no doubt the Nicaraguan people, who so valiantly tossed out an oppressive regime in 1979, will be able to do the same again without our "help" if the need arises.

I was out on the old picket line the other day helping the Writers Guild of America in its strike against what we regard as the scum. I'm a member of the guild because I write for television on weekends in order to keep busy. If I go for more than two days without writing, it is liable to short-circuit the synaptic connection that motivates me in the first place. The scum, as you might have guessed, are the producers we are on strike against.

My wife was in the kitchen the other day, where all good women ought to be, and suddenly called for help. There are different degrees of distress cries in our house, ranging from "How about a hand out here, darling," to "My God, an eagle is carrying off the baby!" I was lying on the couch watching the Anaheim Rams bumble their way to defeat when the shout for assistance came.

The gig : Chief executive of Sapphire Energy Inc., a San Diego biofuels company that develops algae-based fuel that has been used experimentally to power airplanes and, recently, a car that was driven across the country. The serial entrepreneur has had a hand in starting several companies in industries including medical engineering and biotechnology. Sapphire hopes to produce 1 million gallons of algae diesel and jet fuel each year in the next two years, and up to a massive 1 billion gallons of fuel a year by 2025.

Spirulina, a type of blue-green algae, has attracted a wide following in the United States as a kind of super-food packed with protein, vitamins and minerals. Grown in brackish ponds and lakes around the world, spirulina sometimes has been given to malnourished populations as part of organized feeding programs. Many health experts, however, see no use for spirulina among well-fed people, calling it "expensive pond scum."

Re "Energy Antics: Oh, Behave!" May 25: Your editorial is very timely and much needed. In our current environment of talk radio, 24-hour news cycles and the damaging need to raise obscene amounts of money for the nation's business of politics, it seems that decency and manners are lost in the debate. We should all remember an old saying, "Stew the pot and scum will rise to the top." That law of nature still applies. Roy A. Fassel Los Angeles

Calling Taiwan's vice president-elect the "scum" of the country and an incurable separatist, China on Saturday stepped up pressure on the island by renewing its warnings against moving toward independence. China's harsh rhetoric contrasted with the wait-and-see stance it has adopted since a March 18 vote forced out the Nationalists who had ruled Taiwan since fleeing the mainland amid civil war in 1949.

I have this fantasy. The next time mystery writers gather for their annual Bouchercon awards dinner, I'm going to slip some Prozac into their punch. Perhaps it will help them lighten up and stop the trend of bleak books. Granted, there's a thin line between noir and downright dismal, but when I pick up a mystery, which is an escapist genre, I don't want to read about tortured souls who suffer relentlessly with slim hope of redemption.

The discount shoppers were 15 deep at the Marshall's checkout counter the other day, carts heaped with coats and Christmas dresses, only $29.95. The line moved slowly, and people chatted, as people will when they're feeling fine. Someone mentioned how prosperous we all are these days. The salesclerk gritted her teeth and smiled. Later, after the rush, she told a couple of stories. "There are people right now who have five and six layaways here at $500 each, and you know they're not well off."

REMEMBERING HER DAYS AS A young girl--"No one would have accused me of being a happy child"--Leslie Abramson has an enduring memory of her favorite means of escape. After school, at the corner luncheonette, she'd buy button candies and chocolate marshmallow twists (two for a nickel) and spend hours at the comic-book racks, reading. Mad magazine was good for a giggle. But it was the spooky stuff, the horror comics like "Tales From the Crypt," that she really loved. And hated, too.

When they were being whimsical, people used to claim the moon is made of green cheese. They were not referring to a cheese that's green in color, of course; green cheese is simply the opposite of ripe or aged cheese. It is a pale lunar white, like cottage cheese; ripened cheese tends to be tawny, like Swiss or Gouda. But there are cheeses with green veins in them, like blue cheeses. And in 16th-Century Mexico, there was a green "cheese" that was dairy-free.

If you want to bug a Latin student, assign a passage that includes the word "cream." The Romans had no word for it, so your student will have to improvise some clumsy translation like "spuma lactis" (milk scum). The fact is, the Greeks and Romans scarcely ever consumed milk in any form but cheese. Fresh milk spoils quickly unless pasteurized and refrigerated, especially in the warm Mediterranean climate. Even yogurt (oxygala) didn't keep well enough to be a significant part of their diet.

Take heart, Mighty Duck fans. Better days and nights are ahead for your faltering hockey team. After all, it can't get any worse than in the first two periods of Friday's 6-2 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes before 16,560 disgruntled fans, can it? The Ducks play the San Jose Sharks at the Pond on Sunday, so stay tuned. Maybe it can. Neither Paul Kariya nor Teemu Selanne could save the Ducks from themselves Friday. Kariya scored his fourth goal in three games and Selanne earned an assist.