The Fury of the Smoking Manure
USA Today has a long, interesting, and amusing read on North Korean propaganda, including some extensive quotes by B.R. Myers. Read the whole thing on your own, but I can’t resist quoting this:
In a wild rhetorical flourish during a 2003 confrontation with the United States, state radio charged that the Earth itself was furious at the Americans and that even “piles of manure in the fields are fuming out smoke of hatred.” [USA Today, Paul Wiseman]
I, for one, would be legitimately afraid if I ever saw that, especially if I had my office clothes on. Wondering if this could be true, I tried and failed to confirm that it had been published on KCNA. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be so sure Randi Rhodes didn’t say it first.
Related: “It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of madmen.”
The “piles of manure in the fields” indeed are “fuming out smoke,” causing global warming, according to a UN study. But, not to worry, since it’s Earth Day pretty much everyday in NK.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/Story?id=2723201
B.R. Myers was recently quoted on National Public Radio about Euna Lee. He actually believes Lee’s Korean-American ethnicity would make it hard for North Korea to paint her as a spy and that they would not exploit her for domestic propaganda purposes.
However in the USA Today article by Paul Wiseman you can see that Myers claims North Korea uses “xenophobic rants aimed at its own people with tirades against Koreans who marry foreigners”.
Anybody who watched NBC’s Today show on June 2 saw that it’s pretty obvious Euna’s husband is not Korean. Furthermore we learned from Euna’s husband on CNN’s Larry King show that her parents live in South Korea. The very next day (June 3) CNN posts the US State Department’s Internet guide to North Korea Travel on Anderson Cooper’s blog with emphasis on this clause of North Korean law:
“North Korean security personnel may view unescorted travel inside North Korea by Americans who do not have explicit official authorization as espionage, especially when the U.S. citizens are originally from South Korea or are thought to understand the Korean language.”
That fairly well paints Euna Lee as a spy in my opinion, given the fact that the North Koreans are already using her real Korean name (Seung-eun Lee).
I’d like to see Joshua go head to head in a metaphor contest with the KCNA. The winner gets autographed, framed copies of Kim Jong-il’s MRIs.
If my metaphors aren’t manifestly better than KCNA’s, I’ll declare a moratorium.