"He began revealing his true colours, thinking that it was just the time for him to realise his wild ambition..."

"... in the period of historic turn when the generation of the revolution was replaced."

"Questions over Kim Jong-un's 'fuzzy legs.'"

A headline.

Kim Jong-Un has his ex-girlfriend — a North Korean pop star — executed by firing squad.

Hyon Song-wol was one of a dozen pop singers who were machine gunned for (supposedly) violating anti-pornography laws.

One source told [South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo] that some of the victims were clutching Bibles as they were killed in front of their loved ones — who were then ordered to live in the country’s notorious prison camps after they were found guilty by association.

Here's video of Hyon Song-wol singing "A Girl in the Saddle of a Steed":



According to Wikipedia, that was her greatest hit:

Our factory comrades say in jest,
Why, they tell me I am a virgin on a stallion,
After a full day's work I still have energy left...
They say I am a virgin on a stallion,
Mounting a stallion my Dear Leader gave me.
All my life I will live to uphold his name!

It's been a bad first quarter of first year of the second term for President Obama.

1. It's been so bad that the media dropped their erstwhile foible of talking about everything that happens in terms of what it means for Obama. And here it is, the first lap of his new term, when there's more reason than usual to talk about how things are working out for the President.

2. Obama made gun control his big issue leading into the new term. He tried so hard to deploy his speaking skills to channel the nation's emotion after the Sandy Hook massacre, and in the end he couldn't even wrangle all of the Democrats in the Senate, and he was reduced yesterday to surrounding himself with human vessels of tragedy and "a scowling Vice President Biden" and pronounce it "all in all...  a pretty shameful day for Washington." The media offered weak support by describing him as passionately angry, but I watched the video and found it surprising dull. I couldn't motivate myself to go over to my computer to blog about it last night. Obama knew he was going to lose. The theater of sympathy and outrage had gone on far too long, the show was a flop, and the leading man was obliged to take his curtain call.

3. North Korea apparently has a nuclear weapon and the nerve to use it (or to pose as if it does), and the new Secretary of State, the exceedingly dreary John Kerry, is sojourning in the general area nattering about global warming —  "the Foreign Minister and I agreed to raise the initiative above the level that it is today" — and meanwhile, back in the United States, it's really cold.

4. Obama's efforts to get some lightweight good press over basketball failed. His bracket was busted, and a cutesy photo-op produced an embarrassing video in which he went 2 for 22. That he could play basketball was an element of his legend, and now it's that video that comes to mind when we think of Obama and basketball. Does he even have another sport? Golf? Golf, unlike basketball, never worked as an element of the Obama legend.

5. He shut off White House tours, presumably on the theory that it would spark outrage at the sequester (and those terrible Republicans), but that gesture clashed with his own fun in the White House. Ordinary kids had their field trips canceled, while Obama's daughters got Justin Timberlake to come to the White House and perform right in front of them. It was another of the many parties. Wasn't Beyonce just there? And then she and Jay-Z went to Cuba, and, when criticized, Jay-Z put out a pissy rap tune that (I think) insulted Obama.

6. George Bush is making a comeback, with some charming new elements: He's a granddad and he paints pictures of dogs. The big library is opening. And then there's the new disaster in Waco, just 45 miles from his Crawford ranch, giving Bush reason to do a low-profile but touching trip to comfort the injured and the bereaved. So now does that mean Obama has to go to Texas? He's already going to Boston for a memorial service. How can he not go to Texas? But Texas is not comfortable territory for Obama.

7. Margaret Thatcher up and died. What rotten luck! What a platform for the promoters of the ideology in opposition to his! And then idiots take to the streets with all that "Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead" childishness and disrespect, damaging the left-wing brand. Should Obama attend the funeral? Ah, at least send the Vice President. At least send somebody! No. He sends nobody.

8. What's the legislative agenda? Immigration reform? WaPo headlines: "Obama isn’t leading on immigration, and that’s a good thing." The media's attempts to help are getting really embarrassing. He's not leading, but, see, that's a good thing. Let us explain why: "Presidential leadership is a polarizing force...." Blah blah blah. What really matters are the 2014 elections. Just hang back and wait. Nothing but weakness and failure might just be a devious strategy for winning 565 days from now.

9. What's happening with Obamacare? That was the achievement of Obama's first term. If there's one thing he ought to do with this second term, it's make sure that thing gets implemented in a way that works with some degree of smoothness, at least enough that — when people finally notice what's been in the works for so long —  we don't freak out entirely. But: "A senior Democratic senator who helped write President Barack Obama’s health care law stunned administration officials Wednesday, saying openly he thinks it’s headed for a 'train wreck' because of bumbling implementation.'"

10. The trial of Kermit Gosnell is fogging up the clarity achieved in 2012 victory in the War on Women.

"Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now."

"The supreme command of the Korean People's Army Tuesday issued an ultimatum to the South Korean puppet group."

"Bomb North Korea, Before It’s Too Late."

That's the title of an op-ed in the NYT by a Jeremi Suri, a history/public affairs prof. ("The Korean crisis has now become a strategic threat to America’s core national interests. The best option is to destroy the North Korean missile on the ground before it is launched. The United States should use a precise airstrike to render the missile and its mobile launcher inoperable. President Obama should state clearly and forthrightly that this is an act of self-defense in response to explicit threats from North Korea and clear evidence of a prepared weapon.")

And here's Rush Limbaugh, a couple days ago: "Folks, we have discovered the missile silos in North Korea. We know where they are. My question is, why are they not rubble? If we know where they are and we haven't taken them out, what is this automatic assumption that if they launch, we are going to obliterate their country? Do any of you believe that would happen? I'm serious. North Korea launches nukes at us. They can't hit us yet, so they fall whatever hundreds, thousands of miles short. But the intent was clear. You think we'd retaliate?"

"When a marital therapy book looks promising, Mr. and Mrs. Dash buy two copies, one for each of them."

"When they’re both finished, they exchange copies to see what their partner has underlined. They never underline the same passages. It’s like a pair of photos by two different photographers, where you can’t tell that they’re of the same landscape. Two soothsayers reading the same entrails and foreseeing two entirely different fates."

A super-short fiction by RLC, written a few years ago, but long after the time when I was married to him. These days, books are bought as ebooks, so you don't have to buy 2 copies of everything, you just have to authorize 2 Kindles/iPads on the same account — which is what Meade and I do — and the husband and wife can simultaneously read the same book or — as in our case — the same 300 books that we wander around in endlessly, perhaps eventually encountering a passage that we'd underline electronically if the other hadn't already done the underlining. Are there any marital therapy books? Not unless "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank" counts. Or "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Or "The Obamas." Or — this has a self-helpish title — "How to Be Alone."

"Rules for Radicals"? Rule 13: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." There's marriage for you!

Why was I reading that old post? Because when I read that wonderful garden club politics article out loud, I said it was like a compressed novel and Meade said it was like one of RLC's super-short fictions which you can read the best of in book form or read at his blog. The one about married couples reading marriage therapy books simultaneously is just what's at the top when you click the "fiction" tag.

I was also considering blogging "If We Could Only Understand a Pink Sock" — a propos of the fuzzy pink socks that played a central role in the news story of the week, how North Korea is about to drop a nuclear bomb somewhere Mitch McConnell's people considered quoting things Ashley Judd wrote about herself.

Bill Richardson says "maybe I’m a Neanderthal" and "Scarlett Johansson is beautiful."

On "Meet the Press" yesterday, there was a panel discussion about Obama's saying that Kamala Harris "happens to be by far the best looking attorney general in the country," and the lumbering, bumbling former governor of New Mexico came out with this:

You know, maybe I’m a Neanderthal, but I thought that the president’s comment was harmless. It was a political speech. He talked about her accomplishments, he talked about her competence. And then he threw in that line, you know, you are at a political event. What are you going to read her resume? So my point is this, you know, political correctness has reached a point, you know, it’s out of control. Am I going to be criticized for instance if I say that a movie star like Scarlett Johansson is beautiful? Are they going to go after me? Probably.

Does anyone really feel like going after Richardson? We were watching the show yesterday, and when he said this, I just laughed. I said something like: Why do they even have Richardson on the show? Why doesn't he know better than to go on and display himself like this?

Scarlett Johansson is beautiful... Bill Richardson is dumb.... What else is obvious?

(By the way, did you notice that Richardson went to North Korea this past January?)

Mika Brzezinski on Obama's Kamala Harris remark: "It just divides people up to separate them by looks."

Longer quote as transcribed at HuffPo:

I'm sure he meant to pay her a compliment... but quite frankly, it just divides women and it just divides people up to separate them by looks and probably was a little hand-fisted. I just think the whole thing, the whole dynamic about women and their looks puts women under a lot of stress that they don't need. and they should be sort of talked about by their qualities at work, especially when he is introducing someone because she is the attorney general. I actually think, you know, he meant to do -- say something nice. I think he made a mistake.

Did she really say "hand-fisted"? The colloquialism is "ham-fisted." I tried to check, listening to the video at the link, but it went on and on, beginning with a commercial, which I put up with, proceeding through some David Letterman jokes about North Korea, on to introductions of a number of internet-focused male journalists, and then to a presentation of what Obama said about Harris, and I'm still waiting to hear the Mika quote that I can already read, but I actually still care about whether she said "hand-fisted" or "ham-fisted," and then Morning Joe turns to the insipid internet men and asks:

"What did you see on line yesterday?"

I'm all: What did you see on line yesterday? What did you see on line yesterday? What did you see on line yesterday? What the hell am I doing slogging through a video with some guys summarizing what was on line yesterday? Is TV like this now? They don't have commentators opining about what they think. They have little men who pick through Twitter and, essentially, retweet for... who is this for? People who can't find Twitter on their own and need Twitter summarized?! People who think the news is the way the news looked to the people who tweeted about the news the other day" And the only news underlying all of that news is that the President said a pretty lady is pretty?

But like a pretty lady's face, the President's remark has got our attention. (What are we not paying attention to?) And it's something we can all chat about. (What are we not talking about?) And if we don't have anyone to talk to, we can lull ourselves into utter oblivion by listening to Morning Joe's little men repeat the texts of tweets they saw on line yesterday.

That's what I have to say, and you are so far ahead of the Morning Joe-level folks, because you are seeing it on line today.

A quick wrap-up of today's incipient "mask" theme.

Sometimes the blog acquires a theme, like today, when the first post of the day was about masks that the Hopis don't like to call "masks" — you call them masks, we call them friends — and the second was a metaphorical use of the word "mask," to refer to Ben Carson's current persona. But I would be bullshitting if I said that the third and fourth posts were on theme. Oh, I could do that bullshitting. But I'm not going to waste your time. As the title of this, the fifth post, says, quick wrap-up. So here's the news about masks:

1. "Vogue models 'ate tissues' to mask hunger: Revelations follow similar claims by fashion industry insiders."

2. "Hamas militants’ menacing mask of defiance: Hooded gangs patrol Gaza as Israel fires first attack in months breaking fragile truce."

3. "A man wearing an 'old man' mask robbed a Cleveland Chase Bank Wednesday morning, the FBI said." (Hints for bank robbers: Use sunglasses to keep the rubber mask in place and to provide additional masking.)

4. "Do North Korea’s threats mask power struggle behind the scenes?" ("Those who study the Hermit Kingdom have very serious doubts that any attack on the U.S. or allies South Korea and Japan is even being seriously considered. 'It could be there’s a whole other game going on,' said Stephen Long, a North Korea expert at the University of Richmond.")

5. The General Zod mask from "Man of Steel" has been identified as the Halloween costume item for 2013, but the images that were at this link — purportedly terrifying — have been "removed at the request of the studio." Here's a 2010-era General Zod action figure, decidedly unscary.

6. "Police are looking for a man who went into a Turkey Hill [store] in Palmyra early Sunday morning wearing nothing but a ski mask." ("The man is described as a white male, approximately 50 years old, standing 6 feet tall with a 'heavyset' build. He had no visible scars, marks, tattoos or body piercings, police said." An amusing twist on the old phrase "no visible scars." Usually it refers to scars other than on the face. Here, the face is where the scars could be.)

7. The gas mask Justin Bieber wore around town in London last month was just "a joke." (And he "know[s] who [he is]" and is "not gonna let negativity towards [him] bring [him] down.")

So put down the tissues and eat some real food. Don't let the negativity bring you down, baby. Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy. It's not your style.

"N. Korea army says it has final approval for nuclear attack on US."

#BREAKING: N. Korea army says it has final approval for nuclear attack on US

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) April 3, 2013

"The venomous swish of skirt" who occupies The Blue House

A sexist taunt from North Korea.

AND: "This is how Americans live today."

"Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack..."

"... against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest."

Said a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman.

And here's a little propaganda movie uploaded to the North Korean state website last month, appropriating the bad-enough-already tune "We Are the World" to go with images of nuking American cities:

"North Korea said Thursday that it plans to carry out a 'high-level nuclear test' and further long-range rocket launches, all of which it said are 'aimed at the U.S.'"

"The statement from the North's National Defense Commission was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency," says just-in email from CNN Breaking News.

I read it aloud, hear myself laugh, then say, "It's funny 'til it's not funny," and Meade says, "Axis of Evil."