There’s been some discussion here regarding Occupy Wall Street protesters, and last week a group of 11 marchers passed through Henderson. Some of the members have been marching from New York, but the march officially started in DC on December 1st. They are marching to Atlanta Georgia. I have pieced together a short timeline of their journey into and in Henderson in an article.
The President said that Congress cannot go home without preventing a tax increase on 160 million hardworking Americans, and the deal announced Monday night meets that test. This is an important step towards enacting a key provision of the President’s American Jobs Act and a significant victory for the American people and the economy, because as independent analysts have said, failing to extend this tax cut would have had a damaging effect on our recovery and job growth. The President urges Congress now to finish up their business for the American people.
The President believes this is a make or break moment for the middle class, and that’s why he is determined to protect the payroll tax cut for millions of Americans. It’s time for House Republicans to listen to the American people, and their colleagues in the Senate, and agree to the bipartisan agreement to extend the payroll tax cut passed in the Senate. In this installment of the White House White Board, Brian Deese, the Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, explains why we can’t wait to extend President Obama’s payroll tax cut that will continue to benefit 160 million Americans.
Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il, North Korea’s president, died Saturday of a heart attack, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and the television station announced, urging people to rally behind his youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Un. State television broadcast scenes of “indescribable sorrow” after Monday’s announcement of the death of leader Kim Jong-Il, as hysterical people pounded the ground in a display of grief. “They are not even trying to wipe away tears and are convulsing with pain and despair caused by the loss,” KCNA said Monday of the country’s impoverished citizens, adding the population of 24 million was in “indescribable sorrow”. (read more)
Yes, that is the real video released by the state media outlet. Granted, some are joking that these people are crying not because of Dear Leader dying, but because they are told to cry on camera or face prison or being shot. But others point it it could very well be real. As this note regarding Korean culture regrading death:
When death arrived, it was customary for the family members who had been present during the last moments of the departed one to wail (kok). The purpose of kok involved a combination of factors. While it obviously provided a means of expressing the sorrow and sadness of the mourners at losing a close relative, it also involved the expression of guilt by the mourners who might believe that it was because of their lack of pious actions toward the departed which had caused his or her ultimate demise. (read more)
Not only that, but the North Korean people are brought up to believe that Kim Jong-Il is truly the greatest human ever. He is the best golfer, upon his first ever golf game he shot 38 under par, and 11 of the 18 holes were hole-in-ones, swung right-handed, but putted lefty that day with a broomstick-style putter (patent pending) which he had invented 20 years earlier, in anticipation of taking up the game.
But included among the greatest human feats were an ability to influence the weather according to his mood, a fashion sense that (again, according to state-regulated news) had taken the world by storm, the kidnapping of a prominent South Korean film director and his actress wife to aid in the advancement of North Korea’s domestic film industry, a five-foot-two body that didn’t require him to defecate, and most impressively, an ability to put away copious amounts of Hennessey cognac at $630 a bottle that made him the company’s No. 1 customer, worldwide, over the past decade. He’s said to have had a personal library of some 20,000 foreign films, including the complete James Bond series. His favorite all-time flick was Caddyshack. (read more)
In case you missed it in the description above… Yes, he is so great that he does not poop.
Regardless of the hype, a large majority of the North Koreans see his family as their savior, leading them from slavery from the Japanese in 1945. Much like the Chinese (North Korea’s greatest ally) people feel regarding their government, they believe it’s the best thing for them. It may not be perfect, but it keeps everyone in line and does provide a minimum when there could be none.
Now, do you think today’s leaders in America would invoke such a reaction to have people mourning in the streets so openly if something deathly were to happen to them?
Discuss and more on the Tuesday Open Lines!