Picture Postcards from Panmunjom

It's nice, Living in the USA, to believe democracy is a natural state of being for all The Lord's creatures, great and small, proletarian or kulak, Gucci or Gulag-and maybe it is, but it's more than likely money makes the world go round (and Joel Grey just this side of Creep Show scary). Even as the dominoes fell in the late eighties and early nineties, the dustbins of history filled up with the ruins of totalitarian states, the bastions of communism collapsed and even Captive Nations went free range, there was no relief for the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. (Castro's Cuba, often descibed as nearly as bleak and barren, at least has baseball, and rum and coke come to think of it, though in recent days they've declined an option on Mark McGwire.)

What little news that ever escapes from North Korea is almost always relentlessly grim as living conditions are reported as so poor it seems impossible anyone, anywhere, could live in such a manner. Thus, I was stunned, yes, stunned, to read yesterday the same nation that threatens at least once an hour to engulf the entire peninsula they share, albeit grudgingly, with South Korea, by unleashing a ferocious all-out assault on their neighbor, is now wooing American tourists.

I know, sounds like something NatLamp, back when it was real magazine and a really funny one at that, would do as a parody but this is a real story (actually, it sounds more like something Jello Biafra and the Gang might have come up with as follow-up). I'm curious as to what American tourists would (could) do in North Korea. And talk about unnecessary requirements, the longest you can stay is four days. I know, 'Aw shucks!' Me, too. In what fever dream would I have to be living to spend the entire flight home digging pieces of the Pyongyang Airport tarmac out from under my fingernails because they had to drag me onto the plane?

Gotta admit, the Arirang Mass Games Festival sounds interesting, for an hour or so-a two month celebration of the birthday of the late "Great Leader"? On the other hand, I guess it beats the heck out of trying out new recipes for stone soup and rock ragout. Where's Comrade Rachel Ray when you really need her? I'm visualizing the Travelocity gnome in a Mao jacket. Play your cards right and see something you shouldn't, and those four days in North Korea could feel like the rest of your life. Mail me a postcard, Comrade, and sign it 'the workers control the means of production!'
-bill kenny