One of the more-mysterious assholes on earth is dead — Kim Jong Il, the self-styled “Dear Leader” of North Korea died of a heart attack it was reported last night or early this morning.
The guy reportedly has been dead two days and passed while hard at work: A tearful broadcaster reported that Kim died due to “overwork” after “dedicating his life to the people.” Kim suffered “great mental and physical strain” while on a train during a “field guidance tour,” North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency reported.
Yeah, right.
KCNA eventually noted Kim suffered a heart attack and couldn’t be saved despite the use of “every possible first-aid measure” — a heart way-bloated by too much Hennessy, lobster and women.
(Illustration found here).
Keeping it tight, within hours of the announcement, a South Korean news agency said the north tested an unspecified number of short-range missiles in a kind of wake-up notice that just because Kim is dead, his so-called country is still bat-shit crazy.
Kim Jong Un, one of Kim Il’s sons, is believed to be now in charge, though no one knows for sure, in fact, no one seems to even know the boy’s age, other than he’s in his 20s.
And that is the way-crux of the problem — the darkness of information.
Via the BBC: Val Hamer in South Korea tweets: “I live in South Korea. Military on high alert. Choppers everywhere. Strange tension in the air.#kimjongil #northkorea.”
How this whole scenario plays is fairly crucial due to the horrible fact that North Korea is both unstable, and they possess a shitload of material for nuclear weapons, and as the above rocket-launch announcement dictates, can throw that material around the region.
The US White House played it softly, commenting only that officials are “closely monitoring reports that Kim Jong Il is dead.”
The BBC, though, did report President Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak have spoken by telephone, keeping all eyes on the pathic north.
Although Kim Il was greatly disliked by the rest of the world, he scared people.
A retort from a US version of a political shithead: “I loathe Kim Jong Il,” former President George W. Bush once told journalist Bob Woodward, calling him a “pygmy” and a “spoiled child.”
Some background via the LA Times:
Kim was born Feb. 16, 1941, in the Russian city of Khabarovsk, where his father was stationed with other Korean and Chinese guerrillas being trained by the Soviet army to fight the Japanese.
The North Korean propaganda machine later claimed his birth took place a year later on Mt. Paektu, a sacred peak in Korean folklore, and that it was heralded by a double rainbow.
It was only the first of many outlandish legends in a cult of personality that also credited him with writing dozens of books and operas and making 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf.
…
He borrowed heavily from Christian imagery (nobody was any the wiser since the Bible was banned in North Korea, along with other religious literature) to create the myth of a holy family destined to rule.
He was credited with designing the little red badge bearing a portrait of his father that North Koreans to this day are required to wear on their lapels.
Kim eventually became director of the party’s bureau of agitation and propaganda.
The position gave him an excuse to get involved with one of his great passions: cinema.
He expanded North Korea’s film studios and wrote a book, or at least had one published under his name.
In that 1973 tome, “On the Art of Cinema,” he espoused the theory that “revolutionary art and literature are extremely effective means for inspiring people to work for the tasks of the revolution.”
In 1978, overcome with a passion for movies, Kim IL ordered the kidnapping of Choi Eun Hee and Shin Sang Ok, a South Korean film couple — she an actress, he a director — to improve the North’s film industry.
The couple were held for eight years before escaping:
The pair had covert tape recordings of their conversations with Kim and later wrote a memoir containing one of the few firsthand accounts of his personality.
They described a man who could be alternately imperious and self-deprecating, once quipping to Choi about his height, “Small as a midget’s turd, aren’t I?”
A funny, strange little man, who was a self-centered asshole:
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, tales of Kim’s eccentricities spread throughout the world.
Defectors told of wild drinking parties and naked dancers.
Some of the stories were hyped by South Korea’s fiercely anti-communist propaganda machine, but many were corroborated.
Kim imported $650,000 worth of Hennessy’s finest cognac in a single year.
His appetite for women and drink was exceeded by a love for the finest foods.
He hired for his private kitchens a sushi chef from Tokyo and a pizza chef from Italy, both of whom wrote accounts of their experiences.
At the time, North Korea was in the midst of a famine that would eventually kill as many as 2 million people, up to 10 percent of the population, and leave many of them permanently stunted.
Homeless, starving children became a common sight at North Korean train stations.
Kim nonetheless sent couriers on shopping excursions to buy rice cakes in Tokyo, mangoes in Thailand, cheese in France.
And what happens now with the Great Face-Stuffer gone?
The son could keep the hideous shit going like the dad: “The latest move indicates Kim Jong-Un is being put forward formally as a powerful leader like his father,” Sejong Institute analyst Cheong Seong-Chang, a specialist in the succession issue, told the AFP news agency in October. “Jong-Un is known to have the potential to become a strong, ruthless leader,” added Cheong. “He has a take-charge personality.”
Time will tell if he takes charge of some awful shit.