Posted on 02/29/2008 7:43:10 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
In N. Korea, Eccentricity Well Off the Scale
Nothing Seems Too Big When the Kims, Father and Son, Celebrate Themselves
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 29, 2008; A14
PYONGYANG, North Korea -- In closed communist dictatorships, land-use planning often edges toward the far side of eccentricity.
In Albania under Enver Hoxha, the countryside was pimpled with more than 700,000 concrete bunkers. Built to ward off invaders, most became outhouses.
In Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu, a historic quarter of old Bucharest was bulldozed to build a Parisian-style boulevard, an artificial river and a 13-story neo-Stalinist palace that was used for, well, nothing. Before Ceausescu could move in, he was overthrown, lined up against a wall and shot.
Here in North Korea, with a father-and-son dictatorship ruling the roost, eccentricity in land planning has gone unchecked for 60 years. It has gone to the far side, and beyond.
Kim Il Sung, who founded North Korea in 1948, built stupendously large structures to honor himself. So has his son, Kim Jong Il, who took over when his father died in 1994.
And so this week, when the New York Philharmonic flew into Pyongyang for a first-of-its-kind concert, the government offered bus tours to show musicians and attending journalists what the two Kims have wrought.
To explain it in English, the government provided intense men with worried faces. They called themselves "guides." The musicians called them "minders." Their job was to answer questions and prevent foreign visitors from wandering off to see a city that, from a moving bus, appeared to be poor, dark and cold.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ping!
Just imagine the giant statue of OUR Dear Leader...Obama
Wow. She’s so hot she melted the ice around her.
NOT GUILTY !
And today Albania is a staunch ally of the US. So if they can emerge from a nut like Hoxha, there is hope for North Korea once the Kim Il Sung dynasty finally goes to the ash-heap of history.
How could they write and article like this and not include this astonishing creation?
http://theshapeofdays.com/2004/09/07/the-ryugyong-hotel.html
An 105 story shell of a hotel they’ve just abandoned.
Well, N. Korea has done one thing right.
Wow. I wouldn’t mind it if she minded me.
She’s not your type. }:-)
All but 6 were about the “Kims.”
"Come and keep your comrade warm..."
I bet it’s minus 10°F in that picture. But, like the good commie she is, she will stand her post and guide what few cars there are in NK on their way to misery and oppression.
You want to bet she’s not there, now that the New York Symphony is gone? She’s probably hacking down some tree for warmth. She was meerly eye candy for the visitors.
Oil rigs or map displacement error?
P.S. Long time no FReep!
Be well
Fishing boats
4 guys with backpacks could do it easily
Ah ha!
Tnx.
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