A Rising Son

by jim finn

illustrations by tara sinn

photos from AP

On July 8, 1994, North Korea’s Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, finally passed on to the great DMZ in the sky. Now, only months later, it’s looking like his embalmed corpse will forever reign from under a glass coffin like an all-knowing bottomless bowl of dog meat. We’re starting to fear that his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-il, will simply carry on his daddy’s good work of exploiting, killing, and terrorizing his people. But come on, little Kim! It’s not too late. This is our plea to you: Bring your country into the 20th century before it’s over! Join us here in the 90s. We can go get a Whopper Jr. at Burger King and play SNES games together! And, more importantly, you and the West can do a little thing called “have healthy diplomatic and economic relations.” Is most of your citizenry starving? We can help with that! Want to get some better (or any) healthcare in there for the kids in the countryside who are falling down dead? We have doctors! You can use them! All you have to do is stick to Daddy’s promise of putting down the nuclear-weapon blueprints, stop telling everyone that America is Satan, and sit down and jaw with us a little bit. We think you’d really like Bill Clinton (he’s our president).

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