PILLSBURY Doughboy Kim Jong Un has been missing since his ankle gave way under his weight. No, no, his ankle, not his uncle: the one shot to pieces with an anti-aircraft gun for suspicion of loving his nephew less than totally, which is a capital crime in Pyongyang.
Was there a palace coup? Is he dead, the one in every photo out of Pyongyang now distinctly missing from photos of the big North Korean events? Even at the 70th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, he was a no-show. He did not visit the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the embalmed remains of his dad and granddad are displayed. Is it because his remains are being prepared to make the memorial a trio?
Curiously, his 27-year-old sister Kim Yo Jong has been photographed at key functions instead. Yo Jong and her brother were in a Swiss school together, masquerading as children of a maid and a gardener at the North Korean embassy in Geneva. She was rarely seen before: once in Paris, shopping with her late mother, and another time in Singapore, at an Eric Clapton concert. Now there are photos of her all over the place. Could she have replaced her brother? Or did he lose enough weight to show up in drag at party functions?
Was there even a brother, to start with, or only a sister, in which case she wouldn’t be one, because, without another sibling, one is called an only child or only a child? Had she dressed like a boy, acted crazy like Jong and, thereby, made the case for a female succession? ¿Quién sabe? This is North Korea: the convenient excuse for the upkeep of the massive South Korean military.
With communism’s nemesis Park Chung-hee’s daughter ruling South Korea, has North Korea upped the ante and put up the daughter of its late dictator, as well? Female wrestling always offers a special thrill.
Frankly, I think Jong Un is just on a diet. He will surprise us by how much weight he lost incognito when he makes a dramatic reappearance in toto. Well, I had to find something to make it rhyme. A photo of Fat Boy in a baggy suit popped up on the Internet. Either I was right that he vanished to go on a diet and it worked, or that’s his sister wearing a Mao suit five sizes too large.
To our complete indifference over the possible fate of Fat Boy, prison guards in North Korea set deliberately
starved guard dogs free to pounce on the newly born babies of detainees who didn’t have the authorization to get pregnant by their guards.