Man Cannot Live On Ideology Alone

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 15, 2004

Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

Man Cannot Live On Ideology Alone

Each February for the people unfailingly takes a look at Websites of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Korea. Why? For a couple of reasons.

First, they are one of the few places where old-fashioned Cold War language such as "scream of the nefarious traitor whose days are numbered" can be found. Those words are used on one of the Websites to describe a speech by a South Korean political figure, Choe Pyong Ryol.

Or how about this standard Soviet-style boilerplate, found in a paragraph immediately following the denunciation of politician Choe: "The unprecedented vigorous anti-U.S. struggle in South Korea is a very righteous and just struggle to terminate the disgraceful subordinate relations force by the U.S."

But mostly this column turns in February to the North Korean Websites, such as www.kcna.co.jp, because the 16th of that month is the birthday of the nation's exalted dictator and chief bully boy, Kim Jong Il. And, in celebration, whoever updates and designs the Websites gets worked up into an ecstasy unknown the rest of the year.

Consider this item: "Leader Kim Jong Il is a genius of idea and a peerlessly great politician who has glorified the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea] as the homeland of the idea of the times by indicating the road of the independent era with his extraordinary ideological and theoretical activities and led the Korean revolution to invincible victory, dyeing the whole Party and society with one idea."

Oh, my. And if that weren't enough, the peerless leader has "also energetically led people to carry out with the might of ideology the tasks arising in all fields of the revolution and the construction. His leadership, which has turned the misfortune into blessings and adversity into a favorable condition by giving priority to the ideological work, serves as a basic guarantee for the Korean revolution to emerge victorious even under the complicated situation in which socialism collapsed in several countries."

And while the "great" Kim Jong Il indulges in such soulless rhetoric, millions of his countrymen starve. Millions freeze, the country's environment is in shambles, and potable water is in severe shortage. But what do the people of North Korea have? They do have ideology, or so Kim tells them. Wow!

Fighting Words Show Wit of American GIs

It's possible to learn a great deal about history and what war's really like from Paul Dickson's excellent book War Slang, the second edition of which recently was released by Brassey's Inc. The book is subtitled American Fighting Words and Phrases Since the Civil War.

War Slang is divided according to the wars fought, and here are a few examples of the slang from World War I. The doughboys (infantrymen) came up with a great term for vermin: "bosom chums." A flea or louse they termed "cooties," and earmuffs (no doubt inevitably) became "cootie garages."

Some of the funniest slang spun by the troops resulted from how French words and phrases sounded to their very American ears. Thus, Paris got dubbed "we we town" ("oui, oui"). Faux pas, or mistake, quickly transformed itself into a "fox pass," and "toot and scramble" was what Americans made of the French tout ensemble, or all together.

But the best slang came from what the doughboys called their food, and what they made of the daily drudgery of the trench warfare that characterized the Great War. A "stove lizard" referred to a soldier who liked to hang around the stove at the YMCA or Red Cross canteen.

"Zeppelins in a cloud" were sausage and mashed potatoes; beans and bacon were called "stars and stripes." "Butcher" was the name bestowed upon the regimental barber. An Army chaplain was a "sky pilot."

Far more poignantly, the phrase "suicide ditch" meant a front-line trench. And "barbwire garters" referred to an imaginary award for the many who got no special honors or decorations, and probably was a play on the esteemed British Order of the Garter.

Stephen Goode is a senior writer for Insight.