Two and a half cheers among the locals here today. One big cheer for Bill Clinton, on the news that Laura Ling and Euna Lee are to be released by the North Korean Government, having been imprisoned since March 17, and sentenced in June to 12 years hard labour. As well as good news for the people concerned, this marks another stage in the redemption of Bill Clinton, who left office under the slimy weight of a load of Slick Willy stuff that was doing nobody any good, not him, nor the country. Former presidents married to secretaries of Statedo seem to reach the parts others can’t. I noticed some Yellow ribbons out on some streets in Chicago today.
For those requiring any other excuse to dance for joy int he streets today, cometh the news that two beluga whales at the Shedd aquarium here in Chicago are confirmed pregnant — Puiji (23) and Naya (21) are now looking forward to the joys of 14/16 months pregnant. That and no drinks or smokes...
Finally, a couple of baby boomers were telling me they were feeling slightly weirded out over the news that Squeaky Fromme will be out of jail soon. Paid up Baby Boomers will remember Squeaky as a member of the Manson Family. When I first visited the States almost 30 years ago, the local coroner had just published his memoirs of the Sharon Tate murder. It’s now 37 years since Charles Manson picked the young Lynette Fromme up on Venice Beach. After the Manson murders, she added the slightly abstruse crime of attempted presidential assassination, after taking a pop at Gerald Ford. She also jumped jail int he late eighties, and that added time to her sentence. Have a nice day!
4 comments:
I don't know a whole lot about politics, and I'm kind of stupid. But, do tin-pot dictaters have memes?
I only ask, because I noticed that while North Korea was releasing Americans who entered illegally, Iran had just caught a few.
Is it possible that they stole the idea off Korea? Will Clinton be off to Iran next? Will anyone ever send George W Bush off on a mission like this?
I don't know how to feel about Ms. Fromme. I'm too young to remember her. My value judgment is always that freedom is good, and punishment is wrong. But prisoners who have committed violent crimes aren't just victims. It gets complicated pretty quickly.
But most things do.
Sorry, I'm rambling because I'm tired. I don't think I've posted on this blog before. I read it sometimes. And it is often interesting.
Hi +Alan,
On Squeaky: she did not participate in the Manson murders. She did join demonstrators outside the courtroom during his trial, and eventually pointed a gun at Gerald Ford...
Hope all is well woth you and yours.
+Pierre
Maybe there's some kind of trade going on behnd the scenes in Americans... or maybe not. I would hazard a guess that George W. would not be the best person to send in to extract the latest lot.... or indeed to extract cookies from a cookie jar.
Thanks, Pierre, because I'm hazy on my Manson family details, not having read the coroner's story for almost 30 years. Was there not a female member (not Squakey, and actually now you mention it, I remember the picture of her with a placard outside the trial, possibly the daughter of a famous psychiatrist) on the haron Tate job?
I just finished reading the story written by Lisa and Laura Ling,the two journalist-sisters who were both very bold - yea, quite brazen - in investigating dictatorships. (Title: SOMEWHERE INSIDE) The more one reads, the more one begins to think that the whole thing was a setup from the getgo, perhaps by both parties, Kim Il-Jong and Clinton. Since the police system there would not really want to do serious damage to US citizens due to the outcry that would ensue, and to women at that, not to mention of Asian descent (enter racism: the Koreans would not think of these two caught red-handed as "other"), well, it was inevitable that there would be a show-down, a trial, and that a lot of publicity could be extracted for the leadership on both sides. Al Gore was packed and ready to go, but no! It was the Great Leader's desire to meet the affable, cool, promiscuous Clinton, whom apparently the Korean males admire. Everyone gets into the camera act, and money flows, and Korea remains shut against the world as ever.
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