You've got to hand it to those North Korean Communists: They are on the losing side of history; they are facing defections at the highest levels; and they are burdened with a starving population; but they can still churn out propaganda with the best of them.
Last week, they paid for a full-page ad in the New York Times, in which they hailed Kim Jong Il, the bouffant-haired son of the late founding monster Kim I1 Sung, as the "Lodestar for Sailing the 21st Century." You will be interested to know that Kim has been "elected" general secretary of the Workers" party "by the Unanimous Will and Desire of the Korean People!" What kind of man is he? One of "great leadership, remarkable wisdom and noble virtues," always "sharing the ups and down of life" with the "popular masses." (The "ups" of Kim's life include the pleasures of imported Scandinavian prostitutes, not shared, presumably, with the "popular masses.") "Indeed," the ad continued, "he is equipped with all the qualities a great leader needs. " Says Kim in his "Credo," "Statesmen without love and trust are not qualified to be statesmen."
You will be further pleased to know that the ad listed nearly 20 of Kim's " major works," including "Essays on the Cinema" (look out, Pauline Kael!), " For Further Development of Education" (Chester E. Finn Jr., call your office), and "Let Us Carry Out the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung's Instructions for National Reunification" (not a bad idea, stating your thesis in your title).
The ad concluded by directing readers to the home pages for the government and its adjunct, the Korean Central News Agency, which bills itself, strangely, as "the only and one state-run agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea." In a Dec. 17 article titled "Western style cannot be criterion of everything," the press service said, "The imperialists, who describe the western style as the yardstick for international life, put a yellow label on those nations that go against it and reduce them to the victims of their sanction and pressure?"
With communism in its dying days, many of us are worried: Will our children never thrill to the dulcet tones of Com-speak? When North Korea, Cuba, and Communist China knuckle under, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant may be justified to preserve this remarkable idiom for future generations.