Sil in Corea left a very nice note in a previous post awarding me the Premio Dardos trophy:
means “prize darts” in Italian and is awarded for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary and personal values in the form of creative and original writing.
She listed my blog among some really interesting ones that I am now visiting. Alas, I’m not much of a joiner but I do appreciate the kind words! Thank you Sil. And you noted that you are on dial-up Internet connection, so I’ll try to put large-file-size photos below the fold or use thumbnails.
And take a look at this note from one of her recent posts, A Little Excitement:
In regard to the little chairman and his rocket, my neighbors think he’s a fool to waste money on it. My students and I talked about it. The agreed opinion was that the common people in the North are very unfortunate to be stuck there, the crew in power are scared as well as evil, and eventually the government up there will collapse. When that happens, the folks in the South want to be ready to pick up the pieces and introduce their northern cousins to the 21st Century.
My thoughts on the little man with the bad hair is that he is the neurotic product of a dysfunctional family.
The actual “Excitement” post is about a power transformer that blew in her neighborhood, and how the neighbors all came out to watch the guy in the pickup truck who arrived to fix it. The part about North Korea’s missile, is the postscript; less interesting than a neighborhood power outage. Apparently Kim Jong Il looks scarier from Newt Gingrich’s office than from all the way over in South Korea.
The problem with North Korea is that it probably won’t collapse, because the West won’t let it. Every few years NK breaks the agreements they’ve made in the past (in exchange for big piles of aid), starts up their weapons programs, and doesn’t back down until we send them more big piles of aid. As long as the West continues to reward their bad behavior…