"Me Love You Long Time": Adventures of a News Whore

Friends, I must apologize in advance....because of the nature of my work schedule, I don't always get to keep up with things on a very timely basis, so you all may have heard of this story already. (Bear with me, faithful ones. I'll get caught up eventually.) I missed the little tidbit below, along with several other posts this week by Jason Van Steenwyk of CounterColumn, who is one of the most on-point newsroom watchdogs I have yet come across. He has many recent posts worth reading, but I focused on one in particular from a few days ago...

Disclaimer: If there are young children in the audience, please remove them from the theater at this time. Don't worry....I won't start without you.

(tick, tock, tick, tock....)

All right, everybody ready? Strap yourselves in....this ride's gonna be a little rough.

The post I just linked to, dated March 3rd, concerns a piece written by LA Times staff writer Barbara Demick, in which she interviews a North Korean "businessman" in a North Korea-owned karaoke club in Beijing. The picture he paints of his homeland seems rather brighter and sunnier than that portrayed in a recent U.S. Committee on Human Rights report, several lines of which are included in the post for comparison....

....and Ms. Demick would appear to be just fine with that.

Well, Jason has a few words for Ms. Demick, and I think I can safely say that none of them are "happy birthday".

Proceed with caution, gentle reader. This one is not for the easily offended.