You wouldn't want to party with him, but at least the Grim Reaper has a sense of irony. Not 24 hours after the death of Czech dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel, possibly the greatest anti-Communist revolutionary of the 20th century, we learned North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the last Stalinist standing, had reached his final (iron) curtain. The symmetry is being noted by many. Havel's life was dedicated to piercing the upside-down disreality perpetrated by Soviet Communism — his slogan was "may truth and love triumph over lies and hatred" — and he's definitely the only world leader to say, "I'm even secretly persuaded that if Kafka did not exist, and if I were a better writer than I am, I could've written his works.” For his part, Kim Jong Il dressed up the Kafka-esque in platform boots and a bad bouffant, starving his people under the slogan "Prosperous and Powerful Nation" while telling them he could make the weather change with his moods and shoot a 38-under par round of golf.
Posted at 7:42 PM