North Korea has had a really bad time of it for the last two years.But hell, who gives a damn. It's the North Koreans ain't it! Who gives a damn ifthey starve or not? Let 'em eat cake...

The population is already eating leaves, shrubs, roots - basically foraging the wayour ancestors did a couple hundred thousand years ago. Now that's progress for you.The daily rice allotment is about 600g a day. That's about two bowls a day.

The children are suffering the most, as they always do. From a policy of indifferencefrom it's own government, and from a world too weary of hardline communist holdoversto care. I want to care, I really do but I can't right now. I'd like to think thathelping you out will stop Kim Jong-Il from sending his divisions across the 38thParallell someday out of gratitude, but I don't think that's the case. I'd like tothink that by giving money and food to North Korea, it would show them the foolishnessof military spending and take care of their own people the way they should. But Idon't think that's going to happen. They're beyond redemption aren't they? And theyhate us don't they?

I'd like to help out but there is hunger everywhere isn't there. There's hunger andthen there's hunger. I'd like to help...I really would...but I've got this problemmyself and it's taking up a lot of our time right now. There's this hole inside thatI need to work on and I can't seem to fill it. It's gotten to the point that thishole has begun to fill up my entire life with itself. I keep looking for somethingthat will ease the ache it causes, something to make it go away. So you see, withall this going on I can't really be bothered with worrying about some North Korean'srunning a little short of kimchi can I?

And besides, isn't it in our best interests that they get really hungry? I mean...REALLYhungry? Like, hungry enough to get mad at old Kim Jong-Il? Mad enough to kick hisass out of power? Isn't that good? I know some kids and old people and nursing motherswill go without food for a while, and some patients in hospitals, but they don'teat much in North Korea anyway do they?

Besides, I've got this hole to fill up before I can worry about anyone or anythingother than myself. I'm hungry myself in a manner of speaking too ya know. How canI help others if I'm hungry for something I can't even identify?

Pax et Bonum.