No Motherland Without Him... I hope

The guest list for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s funeral is taking shape and already includes a multimillionaire’s widow from South Korea and a Japanese magician known as Princess Tenko. But so far there have been some notable nonmentions, including two of the late dictator's relatives, who have yet to surface since Kim, one of the world’s most reviled leaders, died last week of a heart attack at age 69. Of particular interest was Kim Jong-nam, Kim's eldest son, who has lived in partial exile after falling out of favor with his father for being caught with a fake Dominican Republic passport trying to gain entrance to Tokyo Disneyland. Another thing that the spectacle will not have is foreign journalists, who are reportedly banned from covering the event, set for Wednesday in Pyongyang (point of interest: the Associated Press is one of the few Western media outlets with an office in the isolated regime). But if I was invited to that despot's funeral, I'd come, but I'd fly a South Korean flag during the service. Things did get better under Kim Jong-il (e.g. they would no longer shoot you on sight just because you listened to South Korean radio) but I hope his son Kim Jong-un brings democracy to North Korea. On a not-so-relevant note, Samoa are skipping Wednesday because they're coming over to our side of the International Date Line; this could probably just be a coincidence.