MUSIC VIDEO: "Always look on the bright side of life"

Ed. tells me I need to get out of my funk. At least I think "funk" was the word he used... something like that... so I've been searching the Net for something cheerful and came up with this delightful music video. 

This should appeal to President Trump, since I hear he has called a halt to war games with South Korea, in order to show good will to North Korea, whose Dear Leader is (DJT sez) his great and good fiend friend. So let's watch this with great feelings of everlasting comradeship and happy happy joy joy.

 

Dumb leaders chosen by... errr...

It is said that people get the government they deserve. How, then, to explain this?

It might be argued that the citizens of North Korea have an iron-clad excuse, in that they are not allowed to vote for their Dear Leader. But Canadians do have elections every now and then. So what's their excuse?

Thanks and a tip o' the toque to Agent 6.

UPDATED: Rogers outage caused by a cyber attack?

For hapless Canucks, Friday the 8th turned out to be even more distressing than Friday the 13th. The "Please stand by" graphic Ed. posted on the 7th turned out to be oddly premonitory, as Canadians struggled to cope with a massive disruption of mobile and internet "service" provided by Rogers (aka "Robbers") Communications.

Canada's telecoms market is dominated by just three "service providers". [You understand why Walt is using quote marks, right? Ed.] -- Bell, Rogers and Telus. Knocking out their networks disrupts not just mobile phone calls, but money transfers (Interac, using debit cards), data exchange (problems for airlines, pharmacies, banks, etc), wi-fi (disastrous for those working from home) and even 9-1-1 service. 

But that's what happened yesterday, as Robbers customers  found themselves unconnected for most of the day. Last night, the company said it had restored mobile and internet service for the "vast majority: of its customers. However, it added, some customers may experience delays in regaining full service as its network comes back online and traffic volumes return to normal. 

In a statement posted to the company's social media channels (which customers of other telecoms companies could read, one presumes), Rogers apologized for the disruption the outage has caused to its customers and said it "will be proactively crediting" all customers. Which means: don't call us asking for a refund, we're already doing it. 

Tony Staffieri, CEO of Rogers, said in an open letter that the company apologizes for the service interruption but offered no explanation for the outage or how many customers were affected. Staffieri says Rogers "is committed to understanding the cause and would make changes to meet and exceed expectations in the future."

As of this morning, Rogers still hasn't said what caused their service to go down. Mr Staffieri said they would investigate "the root cause of this outage." Walt humbly suggests they read "FBI director calls China 'biggest' US threat; authorities warn of North Korean cyber attacks", posted on ABC News on July 6th.

The story quotes FBI Director Christopher Wray as saying the Chinese government (not those nice Chinese people, especially immigrants) is set on stealing our technology. Speaking alongside his British counterpart in London on Wednesday, Mr Wray called China the "biggest long-term threat" to both the US and the UK. (He didn't mention Canada because, no matter what Justin Trudeau says, Canada's not important.) 

"The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology -- whatever it is that makes your industry tick -- and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market," said Mr Wray, adding, "They're set on using every tool at their disposal to do it." 

Canada's telecoms, including Rogers, already use Huawei equipment, although M Trudeau (a great admirer of the ChiComms' ability "to get things done") now says they won't be allowing any new Huawei 5-G technology to be used in Canadian networks. Is it possible the Chinese (or North Koreans) hacked the Rogers network as a test, to see how easy it would be to throw a country into confusion and chaos? Just askin'....

UPDATE ADDED 10/7/22: Rogers Communications Inc. says it believes the massive system outage it suffered on Friday occurred after a maintenance update to its core network, but critics are unimpressed with the explanation after the telecom’s second major service interruption in two years.

This critic -- yr obdt svt -- wonders if Rogers would say anything different, if the massive outage had indeed been caused by hackers working for a hostile foreign government, which they (Rogers) did  not expect and could not control. Given the panic that would likely have ensured had they admitted such a huge security breach, would they not have said, "Oopsy. Our problem. We fixed it. Nothing to see here." Just askin'....

Some awkward questions about the Nashville explosion

We interrupt Walt's yearend review to ask innocent questions re the news out of Nashville. In case you were sleeping off the Christmas cheer and missed it, Metro Nashville police officers responded around the dawn of Christmas Day to a report of shots fired in the downtown Nashville area. 

When they got to the scene, they encountered an RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, which it did. Fortunately police evacuated nearby buildings before the blast. Law enforcement officials have said since shortly after the explosion occurred that they believe the blast was intentional, but have not talked publicly about a target or motive except to suggest the possibility of a suicide bombing. 

The obvious questions are: (1) Was this a terrorist attack? Suicide bombings are a stock-in-trade of a certain kind of terrorist. 

(2) What sort of terrorist(s) am I talking about? Let's not jump to any conclusions. There are two other questions worth asking.

(3) What was the point of giving the 15-minute warning? Wouldn't your typical Islamic terrorist want the attack to be a surprise, so as to kill as many "infidels" as possible?

(4) How is it that the detonation of a single car bomb somehow damaged 41 (count `em, 41!) buildings, caused power outages, and disrupted communications services not just in Nashville but in Louisville KY, Knoxville TN, Birmingham AL, Atlanta GA, Gallatin TN and South Charleston WV?

The President of Technology at T-mobile tweeted today, "We continue to see service interruptions in these areas following yesterday's explosion. Restoration efforts continue around the clock & we will keep you updated on progress." he said in a tweet Saturday. 

And believe it or not, Governor Bill Lee asked the White House -- yes, the TRUMP White House -- for federal assistance due to the "severity and magnitude" of the impact of the explosion. 

I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but let me just throw out [Watch your language. Ed.] the suggestion that the Nashville explosion, was either a test to see how much damage a sophisticate device could do OR the premature detonation of a number of such devices, linked by the Internet, set to go off a bit later on Christmas morning, when all the good Christians would be in church. Just sayin'....

DISTURBING FOOTNOTE ADDED AT 1945: Dr Suzanne Pearson, who I met some years ago at a conference organized by the late Father Nicholas Gruner, used to talk about electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, which she (and many others) could be used to damage or destroys the electronic systems in an object by means of damaging current and voltage surges. 

EMPs have been around for a century or so, and you can buy an EMP generator online for under $200. According to a 2013 article on the ExtremeTech website, North Korea has these weapons and could use them to produce a blast like this. 

Even a small EMP could do a lot of damage, and would account for the power outages and disruption of electronic communications observed in Nashville. Makes you think, eh.

North Korea's Plan B to nuke the USA

Thanks to one of my agents who can't be numbered, let alone, named, I am able to reveal Kim Jong-un's secret Plan B to devastate the Excited States of America with nuclear weapons, even if his ICBM's don't live up their advance billing. Ready?

North Korea is planning to place 20 nuclear bombs in leather suitcases and check them in as baggage on airliners bound for 20 different American cities, where triggers which are sensitive to changes in air pressure will cause them to explode when they get under 1000 feet.

This has been done before. The only flaw in the plan (which the Commies haven't realized yet) is that they will have to import the leather suitcases from China. The bags the Chinese send them will be found to be fake.

Korea - Must we go there again?

There's been a good deal of sabre-rattling in Pyongyang, North Korea, lately. Weapons-displaying too. Like a youngster who has just reached puberty and is unsure about his manhood [Does size matter? See post below. Ed.], the Dear Leader of the world's last Stalinist dictatorship [What about China? Ed.] has paraded his totally tubular ballistic missiles to show the world what he can do to us if he gets mad [as understood in British English. Ed.] enough to use them. If he's not firing blanks, that is.

Should we be worried? Or should we just ignore the kid's strutting and shouting? Dismissing as idle the threat of a Communist invasion of the Republic of Korea (aka South Korea) was what the USA, on the advice of General Douglas MacArthur, did in 1950. Look how that turned out. "Gee, Walt," (I hear you ask), "How did that turn out?" For the answer, read The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam (Hyperion 2007). Here's an excerpt.

By early 1950 [Kim Il-sung, grandfather of Kim Jong-un] had systematically taken control of all the levers of power. The great problem in his mind was that he ruled only half a country. Above all else, he longed to unleash his increasingly powerful, Soviet-trained, Soviet-equipped, well-disciplined army to invade, and to his mind liberate, the South, where hundreds of thousands awaited his strike. He would turn two Koreas into just one.

Although the West was, through its own ignorance, taken by surprise by the North Korean invasion of the South, Kim I didn't get `er done. But millions of people -- Koreans, Americans, Canadians, Anzacs, Chinese, etc -- "died for a tie", as Mr Halberstam puts it. Unfortunately for us, the vision of a united Communist Korea persists in the alleged mind of Kim III.

Should we sit back and wait, as we did in 1950, to see if he'll actually make good his bunny-brained threats? I say not. I say we should take action, in the form of a preemptive strike, or at least a demonstration of the kind of power that the USA -- aided by Japan, perhaps -- can unleash should such be required. That means more than sending an "armada" off in the wrong direction!

Let's leave war-mongering for the moment and turn to a little-known story from that time -- part of Walt's effort to make you more knowledgeable for reading WWW! This is about the little-known brother of Kim Il-sung's counterpart, Syngman Rhee, President of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Mr Rhee is described in The Coldest Winter as "the most irascible, contentious, and independent of totally dependent clients." But, like many other Asian dictators ["presidents", surely! Ed.] he was indeed the client of the USA. The Truman and Eisenhower governments did all they could to prop him up and keep him happy.

One of the things the US government did was to find a job for Syngman Rhee's younger brother, who aspired to be a journalist. Thanks to the close relationship with the Luces, a position with Life magazine was found for the younger Rhee. When war broke out, the editors of Life sent their only Korean staffer to the battle zone to cover the hostilities "from the local perspective". Unfortunately, Mr Rhee got separated from the unit with which he was embedded, becoming MIA.

Fearing a diplomatic disaster, the US Army mounted a search-and-rescue operation, along the lines of Saving Private Ryan, and finally located the missing Korean VIP in a hotel (???) in Inchon. When the sergeant leading the search party burst into the room where his quarry was found, he burst into song... "Ah, sweet Mr Rhee of Life, at last I've found you!"

VIDEO: How about if we nuke North Korea?

After the passage of 65 years, there's talk once again of dropping the Big One on the Commies in North Korea. It would be a pre-emptive strike of course and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says we'd better start thinking seriously about it, because, while Kim Jong Un hasn't gone into the deep end yet, he's jumping up and down on the diving board.

But you know... Walt has been around a long time, long enough to remember the Korean War. It occurs to me that we've seen this movie before! And I mean that literally. If you don't remember, check The Atomic Cafe, a 1982 American documentary film produced and directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty. Last year, this film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, by reason of being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film covers the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival material from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s including newsreel clips, television news footage, US government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, and radio and TV programmes. Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter [No more puns, please. Ed.], The Atomic Cafe approaches it with black humour, much of it derived from the modern viewer's reaction to the old films, such as the "Duck and cover!" film shown in schools, and taken quite seriously at the time.

Ed. has found the complete movie on YouTube. The part about the Korean War and the threat of using the A-bomb on North Korea (and China too, for good measure) starts at 22:51. The famous "Duck and cover!" sequence begins at 1:02:49. About a minute before that some well-fed 4-H girls show you what goes into a survival kit. Whatever happened to 4-H, anyway? You get to see Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon too. Watch it now, before YouTube deletes the freebie!

25 worst places to be a Christian

The British newspaper The Guardian has published an overview of the persecution of Christians worldwide, accompanied by a list of the 25 worst places to be a Christian. "Christians are facing growing persecution around the world," they wrote, "fueled mainly by Islamic extremism and repressive governments, leading the Pope to warn of 'a form of genocide' and for campaigners to speak of 'religio-ethnic cleansing,'."

Click here to read The Grauniad's list, with their reasons. Walt's "Reader's Digest version" follows. The list is not in bad-worse-worst order because, well... I don't need to explain, do I?

North Korea - Asia, Communist dictatorship. Believers meet in secret "house churches", risking imprisonment, torture and martyrdom.
Somalia - Horn of Africa, officially Muslim, lawless and chaotic. Christians often executed on the spot.
Iraq - Middle East sandpit, officially Muslim, but which kind of Muslim? Shi'ites and Sunni Muslims are fighting it out in a Muslim civil war, in which the USA and its reluctant allies are meddling for no good reason.
Syria - Like Iraq, only worse.
Afghanistan - Like Syria, only worse.

Sudan - Northern Africa, officially Muslim, Sharia law. Converting to Christianity punishable by death. Blasphemy gets you the lash.
Iran - Middle East, officially Muslim. Safer for Christians than Iraq or Syria, and that's about all you can say.
Pakistan - Asia, officially Muslim. Christians are second-class citizens. Blasphemy (against the Prophet or the Holy Qu'ran) punishable by death.
Eritrea - Horn of Africa, pseudo-Communist dictatorship, Muslim majority. See North Korea.
Nigeria - Africa, divided between Muslim north and nominally Christian south. Sharia law in the north. Boko Haram abducts girls, kills Christians by the thousands.

Maldives - Never heard of it, right? Beautiful little islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of India. Great tourist destination. Officially Muslim. Converting from Islam means forfeiting Maldivian citizenship, and owning a Bible is punishable by death. Churches are banned; Christian migrants and tourists also have to meet in secret and cannot own Bibles.
Saudi Arabia - Middle East, feudal kingdom. Officially Muslim and we're talking Wahabi, the most extreme branch of Sunni Islam. For their faith, Christians may be arrested, imprisoned, tortured and deported.
Libya - North Africa, officially Muslim. ISIS hotspot, going through a civil war following a pointless Western invasion. The new Somalia.
Yemen - Middle East, feudal, officially Muslim. Christians treated as in Saudi Arabia, and caught in the middle of a civil war, with Saudis intervening on the side of Islamic fundamentalists.
Uzbekistan - Central Asia, pseudo-Communist dictatorship. As in China [How did China get left off this list?! Ed.], all churches must be registered with the state. Converts from Islam face imprisonment, beatings and sometimes banishment.

Vietnam - Asia, Communist dictatorship. Not quite as bad as China, since the Roman Catholic Church still has a large following, the legacy of the colonial days. As in China and Uzbekistan, churches must be officially registered. As in China, many churches have been destroyed, and Christians attacked and imprisoned.
Central African Republic - Africa [Duh! Ed.], chaotic, lawless. The militant group Séléka, (= CAR rebels + Muslims from neighbouring countries), have raped, tortured and killed Christians throughout the country. Unlike in other countries on this fecal roster, defence groups made up of people claiming to be Christians are fighting back. Victims, Christian or Muslim, may be eaten.
Qatar - Middle East, Islamic kingdom. Converts to Christianity face banishment and death. Large population of migrant workers have to keep their faith to themselves.
Kenya - Africa. Like Nigeria but substitute Al Shabaab for Boko Haram. If you're a white, presumably Christian tourist, keep your head down.
Turkmenistan - Central Asia, quasi-dictatorship, officially Muslim. See Uzbekistan.

India - Asia. Officially a secular state but under the ruling BJP effectively "Hindustan". Like Pakistan, only with the persecutors being Hindus. In some states there are anti-conversion laws, and attacks on Christians and church buildings occur frequently. Indian Muslims are recommended to move to Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Ethiopia - Horn of Africa. I don't agree with The Guardian on this one, as the majority of Ethiopians are Coptic Christians. But there are Muslim-dominated areas, where Christians report harassment for their faith. The Grauniad says there were 60 violent incidents reported in 2014.
Egypt - Northern Africa, officially Muslim. There is a large(ish) minority of Coptic Christians who were largely left alone until the US-supported overthrow of the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, which was followed by a sharp increase in anti-Christian violence, with 65 churches, convents, Christian bookshops and schools attacked. There are fears these attacks will increase as radical Islamist groups gain power in the region.
Djibouti - Horn of Africa, officially Muslim. You'll find it on the map next to Eritrea, which it greatly resembles. That's all you need to know.
Burma - Asia, quasi-dictatorship, officially Buddhists. Included in The Guardian's list (I guess) to show that it's not only the Islamists who have it in for Christians. There has been a rise in nationalist religious movements in the past few years, with nearly two dozen Christians killed in clashes with the army in 2014. Buddhist nationalist groups are putting pressure on the government to adopt laws that would make life harder for Christians, such as limiting conversions and restricting interfaith marriages.

So there you have it -- the 25 worst countries in which to be a Christian. OK, 26 if you count China, which you definitely should. And The Guardian says nothing of the persecution of believers in the True Faith by the secular humanists who have triumphed in post-Christian Europe and North America.

Dear Christian readers, please keep in your minds and hearts the words of St. Paul:
2 Timothy 3:12 - And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Romans 8:35/37 - Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or sword? / But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us.

Further reading: "Dying for Christianity: millions at risk amid rise in persecution across the globe" (Companion piece to The Guardian's list)

North Korean leader's uncle thrown to the lions -- LITERALLY!

Dear readers, Walt assumes you follow the news assiduously -- local, national and international -- and heard or read yesterday's story about the downfall of Chang Song-thaek. Mr. Chang was -- note the past tense -- the uncle of North Korea's Dear Leader 3.0, Kim Jong-un.

Being an uncle of the Numero Uno (I don't know how to write it in Hangul script) doesn't necessarily make you loyal. Mr. Chang was accused of treachery and disloyalty and trying to organize a coup. If you were watching the TV news, you saw a video clip of two uniformed army types lifting Mr. Chang out of his seat at a special party meeting and frog-marching him out of frame to... well... to his death!

Today it is revealed that Mr. Chang was given a summary trial of sorts and promptly "executed". At least, that's what the English-language media are telling us. At first he was said to have been shot, in traditional Communist fashion. (The Chinese Communists make the family of the deceased pay for the bullet too.) But Agent 78, checking the Chinese media, tells a different story.

According to Agent 78, Mr. Chang was not shot, but eaten! A story published in a Hong Kong newspaper claims he was thrown into a cage of what 78 translates as "cheetahs", who made a meal of him...literally! It seems odd to Walt that there would be cheetahs in North Korea. [Try the Canadian Senate. Ed.] Perhaps it was lions. Or wolves. Or pigs. But it does seem like a fitting end for a corrupt politician.

The Kim is dead! Long live the Kim?

So, farewell then, Kim Jong-il. In an early gift to political pundits around the world, North Korea's barking mad Dear Leader went to the Socialist Workers Paradise yesterday. The new emperor [Ed., please check] will be the teenaged [Ed., please check] Kim Jong-un. Mr. Kim is shown here reacting to news of his father's demise.

The "Great Successor" -- Kim's new title -- is apparently delighted that it's now his turn to play with the trains and wooden soldiers. However, North Koreans, and the country’s neighbours, are apprehensive.

Once all the forced and melodramatic mourning for Kim Jong-il is over, the challenge that will come fast for the younger Mr. Kim. How will he explain the next big failure to a people desperate to see their lives improve? In a country where propaganda is truth, the regime Kim Jong-un now leads needs either some proof that the country is indeed strong and prosperous, or someone to blame for falling so far short.

It’s easier to fire blame [rockets, surely. Ed.] towards South Korea, Japan and the United States than to reform the broken system your father and grandfather built. And provoking a military crisis might help Kim Jong-un convince his father’s generals that he is the right person to lead them.

Or maybe not. Walt offers 3-2 that there will be a violent upheaval in North Korea -- call it a Korean spring roll -- by Christmas 2012. Place your bets at the usual place -- the barbershop around the corner and up your block. Lifetime pct .980.

Who shall we invade next? Walt's prediction

Another mission accomplished. The maverick, rogue, pariah [Ed., please insert other adjectives as needed. Walt] state of Libya has had its régime changed to one which is certain to be more pliant ["democratic", surely! Ed.] and peace and prosperity are assured. [Don't forget what you said earlier today! Ed.] So where do we go from here?

Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya. This is the third time in two decades that the USA and/or NATO and/or The West has invaded a troublesome country to relieve it of the oppression of a brutal dictator who, coincidentally, liked us even less than we liked him.

The principle seems pretty well established. If the West (meaning the USA and the running dogs which follow it) doesn't like the politics and policies of a foreign government, we can and will do whatever it takes to overthrow it. This is not a new idea. Think Chile. Think Vietnam. [Maybe not such a good example. Ed.] Think Monroe Doctrine.

So who's next on the list? There's quite a number to choose from. How about Iran, for starters? Charter member of the Axis of Evil. And North Korea, led by the totally loony Kim Jong-il. Dropping the net on him would be a boon to the whole world. And how about the octogenarian Comrade Bob Mugabe, president-for-life of Zimbabwe. His people are too passive and intimidated to rise up against him. Maybe we should go in and give him a case of lead poisoning.

But which one will we choose? Let's see. Zimbabwe has no oil. North Korea has no oil. So that leaves...hmmm... Don't say you weren't told. Lifetime pct: .971.

Kim visits China

I no sooner posted my review of Nothing to Envy than I came across this report from Reuters correspondent Roystan Chan.

Mr. Chan says that Kim Jong-il, the "reclusive leader" of the "hermit state" (North Korea) has just started a state visit to Dalian, a major city in the northeast of China. It is unusual for Mr. Kim to leave his country and one can only guess at his reasons for doing so.

Seems to me it's not unlike a resident of Richmond B.C. going down to Bellingham for a little shopping. Mr. Chan opines that Kim is "in search of economic support and diplomatic protection from his only major ally, after bungled policies at home and military grandstanding that has exasperated the region."

Kim will doubtless get some help from the Chinese, even it comes with strings attached. The Chinese communists are deathly afraid that a revolt by the famished people of North Korea could give their own people "wrong ideas". They also worry about being swamped by millions of refugees in the event of an uprising or a worsening of the already shocking economic situation of the Korean masses.

When we're not thinking of our own domestic problems, we tend to focus on the Middle East. Walt says: look farther east... farther... If serious trouble breaks out in the Korean peninsula, what will the American and other western governments do? Do we have any kind of contingency plan? Just asking.

A peek into the world's most closed society

One of the curses of communism is hunger. A major problem with a totally planned economy is that its inefficiencies and lack of a free market inevitably lead to shortages. The result, in virtually every communist country, has been widespread starvation, even famine.

The two great examples that spring to mind are the Soviet Union in the 1930s, particularly the famine in the Ukraine, and China during the so-called Cultural Revolution of the 60s. 100s of millions of people died of starvation and disease during these manmade calamities.

When I say "manmade" I refer in both cases to just one man -- Uncle Joe Stalin who deliberately starved the Ukrainians so the Russians could eat their food, and the "Great Helmsman", Chairman Mao, who reduced his people to scavenging and even cannibalism.
Lesser examples are to be found even today, in Castro's Cuba and Comrade Bob Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

And then there's North Korea. The rest of the world will never know (and perhaps does not much care) how many millions starved to death in the 90s as Kim Jong-il presided over an economic collapse the likes of which has rarely been seen except in pockets of poverty and savage backwardness like Pol Pot's "Kampuchea" (Cambodia), the site of the Killing Fields.

Barbara Demick is the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. She has just written a remarkable book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which I read over the weekend. I'm not exaggerating when I say I found it hard to put down, even during the hockey game.

Nothing to Envy is not a newspaper report. It is not a dry, dull recitation of facts and figures, perhaps because statistics and factual reports from North Korea are largely "unavailable". Instead, Ms. Demick tells the true stories of six ordinary people she met in South Korea, and explains how and why they left their homeland.

You'll read about a kindergarten teacher and her mother, a street kid, a graduate student, a doctor, and a factory worker. All of them escaped -- not too strong a word -- from North Korea, leaving behind everything. (One woman ran away from an abusive husband and made her way to the Chinese border clad only in a nightgown.) All of them left behind families, some of whom were able to get out, but some of whom were imprisoned or just died.

Ms. Demick recounts in detail the deprivation and horrors her subjects' lives. We westerners simply cannot imagine living with no electricity, no heat and almost no food. The description of what these poor people ate is enough to make you feel guilty about chowing down on a steak.

The doctor, after wading through an icy river to get into China was delighted to find, just inside the open door of a cottage, a bowl of white rice and meat scraps. She wept when she realized that it had been left out for the family dog. "Here," she thought, "even dogs eat better than doctors in Korea."

The stories end somewhat happily as the refugees eventually get to South Korea, but their psyches will be forever scarred by what they endured and thoughts of those left behind.

I found Nothing to Envy a gripping read. And Mrs. Walt, who has little interest in geopolitics and almost never eads non-fiction, is devouring it now.

I recommend it to you, dear reader, on the theory that we should know our enemies. The North Korean government still talks, in its newspapers and schoolbooks, about "Amerian bastards". The two words are always conjoined. And they are out to get us!

Some laughed at George W. Bush when he talked about "the axis of evil". Well, there is evidence that the communist regime of North Korea is being propped up by money from the Middle East. And they do have the means to make a nuclear bomb. In fact a device was tested just a year ago.

Some think that the dictatorship of Kim Jong-il will collapse. They point to the downfall of the USSR and the changes in China to argue that we don't need to worry about North Korea. But the Soviet dictatorship is not dead. It has merely changed its shape and face. Putin is a latter-day Stalin. As for China, its economic system may have changed, but its political system is stronger and more repressive than ever.

As Ms Demick points out in her epilogue "North Korea survived the breaching of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the market reforms in China, the death of Kim Il-sung, the famine of the 1990s, and two terms of George W. Bush's presidency." They are not going to suddenly admit that they've been wrong for over 60 years and join hands with their brethren across the DMZ.

We must pay attention to North Korea. We must understand how their system operates and how they think. Reading Nothing to Envy (2009, New York, Spiegel & Grau) will give you a small but terrifying idea.