... EXCEPT, OF COURSE, FOR OFF THE GUIDED TOUR

Thumbing through old copies of National Geographic magazine is always a fine way to pass the time while waiting for the Missus to get made up. A photo caption from an August 1974 issue (article: "A Rare Look at North Korea" by Edward H. Kim) reads as follows:

City dwellers enjoy another amenity - stores located within their apartment complexes. Here, Pyongyang shoppers survey an array of fresh vegetables. The selection does not include imported foods, but the supply is plentiful and hunger is unknown in North Korea

Naturally, I do not suggest that famine was rife in North Korea thirty years ago, a PDRK kept on life support with Soviet largesse. It cannot be overlooked that the North Korean destitution and famine of today had its genesis in the lauded North Korean economic "achievements" cited in Mr. Kim's article. The caption really grabbed me.

"Hunger is unknown in North Korea"

Well, it's known now.

FEW AMERICANS SEE CASKETS COMING HOME

from The Baltimore Sun via Antiwar.com

ANOTHER DAY OF BAD PRECEDENT-SETTING

If this door opens, I guess I should feel secure that these hippies who are such a threat to the nation's moral fibre will now be spied upon mercilessly, their on-campus movements recorded with the meticulous zeal of a Heinrich Himmler, if an Iowa federal bench judge's issue of subpoenas stands...

BY RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

DES MOINES, Iowa -- In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said.

Federal prosecutors refuse to comment on the subpoenas.

In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum.

The group, once targeted for alleged ties to communism in the 1950s, announced Friday it will ask a federal court to quash the subpoena on Monday.

"The law is clear that the use of the grand jury to investigate protected political activities or to intimidate protesters exceeds its authority," guild President Michael Ayers said in a statement.

Representatives of the Lawyer's Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union said they had not heard of such a subpoena being served on any U.S. university in decades.

Those served subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq in 2002.

They say the subpoenas are intended to stifle dissent.

"This is exactly what people feared would happen," said Brian Terrell of the peace ministry, one of those subpoenaed. "The civil liberties of everyone in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very important on how things are going to happen in this country from now on."

The forum, titled "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!" came the day before 12 protesters were arrested at an anti-war rally at Iowa National Guard headquarters in Johnston. Organizers say the forum included nonviolence training for people planning to demonstrate.

The targets of the subpoenas believe investigators are trying to link them to an incident that occurred during the rally. A Grinnell College librarian was charged with misdemeanor assault on a peace officer; she has pleaded innocent, saying she simply went limp and resisted arrest.

"The best approach is not to speculate and see what we learn on Tuesday" when the four testify, said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, which is representing one of the protesters.

Mark Smith, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors, said he had not heard of any similar case of a U.S. university being subpoenaed for such records.

He said the case brings back fears of the "red squads" of the 1950s and campus clampdowns on Vietnam War protesters.

According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the Drake subpoena asks for records of the request for a meeting room, "all documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting, and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually attended the meeting."

It also asks for campus security records "reflecting any observations made of the Nov. 15, 2003, meeting, including any records of persons in charge or control of the meeting, and any records of attendees of the meeting."

Several officials of Drake, a private university with about 5,000 students, refused to comment Friday, including school spokeswoman Andrea McDonough. She referred questions to a lawyer representing the school, Steve Serck, who also would not comment.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.

THE GULAG SNUFFLEUPAGUS

John Venlet at Improved Clinch expresses his dismay at the lack of media attention regarding the emergence (via a BBC documentary) of apparent gulag camps in the glorious people's democratic republic of the northern portion of the Korean peninsula. It's, to say the absolute least, a legitimate complaint, echoing and citing the one made here by the Washington Post's Anne Appelbaum

Seemingly acknowledging that the documentary, in all likelihood, was quite accurate. What I’m wondering, is why, if the “allegations” more than likely are true, why that truth, of what occurs in totally state managed societies, isn’t used to, daily, pound sense into peoples heads about the evil of socialism, under whatever guise it may take. It may appear all friendly and good for everyone at the start, but it’ll end bad.

Because, John... the "state capitalists" pictured above perverted the noble sanctity of Marx' vision. You silly. Look at them, goofy goose. Kim il Sung's wearing a business suit for goodness' sake. How you can somehow extrapolate that socialism is evil from a business suit-clad state capitalist despot's nation-as-personal playground is beyond me.

Supplemental: Free North Korea dot Net