NYC Letter: Some Stories You May Have Missed

America Diminished, Bush Blamed

Well, of course, you've read that headline several times this past week, hundreds this past year. But in this one America is materially diminished by force majeure, which we have recently come to understand from secular humanists, is God punishing the religious.

LARGE PIECE OF HAWAII FALLS INTO THE PACIFIC

LOS ANGELES December 5, 2005 (Telegraph) - A vast chunk of Hawaiian coastline has broken off and fallen into the sea after a volcanic shelf collapsed at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Even now green internationalists are petitioning the UN to sanction Mr. Bush for poor planetary stewardship.

Lights! Camera! Propaganda!

Dear Leader and International Bad Boy, Kim "Where's the Brill Creme?" Jong-il intends to go head to head with Speilberg & co., transforming the DPRK into a celluloid powerhouse.

KIM CASTS NORTH AS MOVIE MAGIC
(Registration required.)

PYONGYANG, North Korea December 4, 2005 (WT) -- Mr. Kim, known to his countrymen as "the Dear Leader," recently paid a visit to North Korea's Pyongyang Film Studio to give auteurs the benefit of his "on-the-spot guidance." His message was combative.

"He said we are not competing with U.S. and European films. We have to beat U.S. films," Kim Man-sok, the head of the studio's foreign sales division, told foreign reporters. "Poor films cannot go to the international field," Kim Man-sok explained. "So this year, we are struggling to make good films."

Dear Leader has assigned former abductee Shin Sang-ok the job of improving the quality of Nork films.

Mr. Shin was a South Korean director. In one of the Cold War's oddest episodes, he went to North Korea to rescue his wife, actress Choe Eun-hui [aka, Eun-hie Choi], who was kidnapped in Hong Kong and taken to the North in 1978. The North says Mr. Shin defected willingly. ... The director's most famous [Nork] production was "Pulgasari," a kitschy 1985 flick about a Godzillalike monster that aids peasants and tramples landlords [Tagline: Banned for a decade!]. Mr. Shin and his wife escaped in 1986, and his mark on the North's film industry appears to have faded.

Well, we don't know about Mr. Shin, but if you'd like to see a world-class Korean film, we recommend Chan-wook Park's twisted and fascinating Oldboy (and here), if for no other reason than its at once real and unreal and wholly surreal fight set piece.

Red Crystal Baloneyism

There is the Red Cross. There is the Red Crescent. And now, there is the Red Crystal, an empty symbol applauded for its emptiness. And why, because better that than a Red Magen David (Magen David Adom).

RED CROSS MULLS 'NEUTRAL' EMBLEM

December 5, 2005 (BBC) - The wrangling over the issue has gone on for decades, and it is proving costly for the International Red Cross. For the last five years, the American Red Cross has withheld its subscriptions to the international movement in protest at Israel's exclusion, creating a shortfall of over $30m.

The only solution seems to be a third emblem, and Red Cross officials have come up with a design they hope will please everyone.

But there is one issue which might get in the way - many Arab countries already see the third emblem as an unnecessary accommodation of Israel.

For the Swiss, who have spent months working towards the conference, and whose foreign minister has made several trips to the Middle East and Israel in the last few weeks, this last-minute hitch is causing great anxiety.

"It's frustrating," said one diplomat who asked to remain anonymous. "We're actually trying to get a solution for the Red Cross, but some seem to want us to try to solve the entire Middle East conflict."

Now there is a thicket of arguments about this, but they are largely irrelevant. Good or bad, strong or weak, no arguments will prevail against Islamic peevishness. We count it fortunate that the original symbol of a red cross still has standing in the world.