Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Last week Bill Clinton went to North Korea to secure the release of journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. It was a nice human story and it was nice to see the women reunite with their family, particularly Lee with her little daughter. The nice thing was that officially it was an unofficial visit by Clinton with no official diplomatic effort. Well, everybody understands what I meant anyway. Some people actually said that we gave in to Kim. What is it exactly we gave him? A picture of him and Clinton sitting in chairs without a smile, that's about it. Kim would get some publicity in North Korea out of it, as he really needs publicity there. Elsewhere everybody understands that the U.S. had to do what it had to do and gave away nothing for the women's return.

Having said that, this was a distraction the government did not need. I know that journalists have to take risks but to me it was dumb to be inside of North Korea or close enough so that they can be caught. What can they possibly uncover in that area and tell the world about it? We already know Kim is a terrible dictator and the N. Koreans are living in hell. Why take such a stupid risk? Now there is news that 3 Americans hiking in Iraq wandered into Iran and were captured. What, they can't hike anywhere else in the world other than Iraq? You can't get close to nature at Yosemites? You don't know that Iran and Iraq share a border? I know we don't teach geography well in school, but this is ridiculous. All three were UC Berkeley graduates, which make me wonder what they teach in that famous school. Obviosly not common sense. After these people get home, they and the two women journalists should be sentenced to teach political geography to high school students. After they take a course themselves first, of course.