A tip of the propeller beanie to the Boston Globe for picking up and re-publishing the article by Jean Lee of the Associated Press entitled N. Korea Food Shortage is Worst in Years. It seems that after the great 1990's famine, the state established an ostrich farm which it hoped would help feed its people and develop export products. North Korea has many attributes, but a balmy climate is not on of them. In fact, to keep the bird's warm during the brutal winters, they have been equipped with quilted vests. You just can't make this stuff up. Beyond becoming an exotic menu item at some of "Pyongyang's finest restaurants" (maybe they still have a Howard Johnson's or two)those yummy ostrich burgers just haven't found their way to the local commissaries. Meanwhile, the people have been busy, of late, punching multiple new holes in their belts to better facilitate tightening.
Citing a litany of causes for the food shortfall; such as, rising global food prices, shortfalls in fertilizer (there's a good line there somewhere) and adverse weather, the state is quietly sending out requests for aid to avoid mass starvation of its population. Not given as a cause is the abject failure of the communist government which excels only in rattling its nuclear sabre. Apparently, this time around,foreign governments and Relief Agencies are not rushing to provide aid. Probably because this calamity bears a striking resemblance to the famines of the last twenty years or so. Go back and read the prior VIEW POST on this topic. Hasn't anyone over there learned anything during this time? Weren't there at least a few Teachable moments, to coin a phrase.
There is also suspicion that the government is stockpiling food in order to distribute gift baskets during next year's one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the late president, Kim Il Sung. Won't those be welcome by those that manage to survive until then. Agencies that might otherwise provide food relief are also demanding guarantees that any relief supplies will, in fact be given to the people rather than being stolen by the military and resold on the black market, an all too common practice. Once again, we are not making this up, read the AP article.
Please understand that this is no excursion into schadenfreude as we take absolutely no pleasure in the suffering of the North Korean people. But an ostrich farm? This sounds like one of Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton's get rich quick schemes. How can this government, or any government, with 24 million souls under it's wing, continue to exist in face of this totally inept and incompetent record? While you think about it, ponder this: gaggles of ostrich, wearing quilted vests, wobbling around, trying to stay warm, all to the tunes of an accordion ensemble.
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