Category Archives: N. Korea
Obit Week
The year 2011 was the end of the line for guys who changed the world – Steve Jobs in one way, Vaclav Havel in another. Anne Applebaum tells how Havel ‘s essay “Power to the Powerless” changed the world. His great insight was that all totalitarian regimes are based on a lie. If individuals “live in the truth” the lie dies and the regime collapses. That’s what happened with the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia.
As it happens, Havel was overshadowed in death by the totalitarian leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. Or Kim Jong-Dead, as Rush Limbaugh kept referring to him yesterday.
The Dear Leader’s birth on a sacred mountaintop is said to have been announced by a talking swallow. In addition to his miraculous golf scorecard, he claimed the power to order up perfect weather for his birthdays. He wasn’t completely without humility, though, having never claimed to cause the planet to heal or the oceans to recede.
Many tree bark eating North Koreans who mourned the death of their epicurian leader (his annual bar tab for Hennessy Cognac alone was over half a million dollars) don’t seem to be “living in the truth” so much. But then what would you expect from a nation of racist dwarfs.
Leaks
The U.S. wants China to play a” responsible role” with North Korea. That may depend on the meaning of “responsible”.
Ships in the Night
The UN condemned Israel for it’s raid on the blockade running “Peace Flotilla”, sponsored in part in Turkey. Netanyahu remained defiant, claiming the craft was not the “Loveboat”. Krauthammer thinks the blockade is more than justified. Peter Beinart says it must go. Beinart’s old boss at the New Republic, Marty Peretz, had the bad manners to bring up the Armenian Genocide.
Wild About Harry
Some of Senate majority leader, Harry Reid’s, constituents don’t like the way health care reform is going. He responded by calling them Evil Mongers. Not surprisingly, he finds himself down in the polls. Now he’s charming his way back by picking a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel (not to quote Mark Twain). He told the Las Vegas Review Journal he hopes it’s going out of business. His defenders say he was joking. Judging by his Evil Monger thigh slapper, they could be right.
Please go here for the counterpunch from the man who buys the ink (Sherman Fredrick, the publisher)
