Althouse: Great NYT headline: "Bulletproof, Slow and Full of Wine: Kim Jong-un’s Mystery Train."

March 27, 2018

Great NYT headline: "Bulletproof, Slow and Full of Wine: Kim Jong-un’s Mystery Train."

The article, by Russell Goldman, is about Kim Jong-un's trip to Beijing.

43 comments:

Wince said...: Do a word search and you won't find Trump's name mentioned in the article.

Yet on the side-bar you will find links to the following NYT articles:

After Stormy Daniels, Republicans Face a Referendum on Trump’s Conduct

Stormy Daniels Spanks Trump Again; 3/27/18, 10:48 AM
Kevin said...: All aboard! Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay

Crazy, but that's how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe it's not too late
To learn how to love and forget how to hate

Mental wounds not healing
Life's a bitter shame
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train

Let's Go!; 3/27/18, 10:48 AM
Gahrie said...: I thought they were describing Hillary....; 3/27/18, 10:49 AM
gspencer said...: Kim Jong-un will first be called onto the carpet, then taken to the woodshed,; 3/27/18, 11:01 AM
Wince said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/27/18, 11:01 AM
Wince said...: Notice the 2015 video of Kim Jong-un smoking on the train.

Kind of like Sean Penn on Colbert last night.

Sean Penn admits he's on Ambien, smokes on air in bizarre Colbert interview

"So you're still a little bit on the Ambien train right now?"; 3/27/18, 11:04 AM
Nonapod said...: More than 3,000 people were killed in Ryongchon, near the Chinese border, in April 2004, when trains laden with combustible material exploded because of a collision or an electrical malfunction.

There were initial rumors that the explosion was part of an attempt on Kim Jong-il’s life because the leader’s train had passed through the town hours earlier.

Make's me wonder if there was an internal assassination attempt (ala 20 July plot), it seems more likely than a foreign powers at any rate.; 3/27/18, 11:09 AM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/27/18, 11:10 AM
traditionalguy said...: Road Trip. What else can little Rocket Man do when he knows that he is on double secret probation.; 3/27/18, 11:10 AM
Hagar said...: Well, it is getting interesting. However, I don't see any solution that does not involve the Kim family leaving North Korea one way or another.; 3/27/18, 11:10 AM
Achilles said...: China didn’t even want a handwritten note with their instructions on it. Electronic communications can be made very very difficult to intercept and decipher. This strikes me as unnecessarily paranoid.

China is way off balance right now. So is the NYTs.; 3/27/18, 11:12 AM
Achilles said...: Hagar said...
“Well, it is getting interesting. However, I don't see any solution that does not involve the Kim family leaving North Korea one way or another.“

Kim would choose figurehead to being torn limb from limb by a mob of his people after China pulled their support.; 3/27/18, 11:14 AM
Balfegor said...: I find the history of that rail network kind of fascinating. He probably took the old Gyeongui Line up from Pyongyang to Sinuiju to cross into China. Construction of the line started back in 1902 (?), but like a lot of Korean infrastructure, the Japanese really pushed construction forward in 1904, with the Russo-Japanese war, when the railway was needed to transport men and materiel to the front with Russia. The original route crossed down into what is now South Korea (the North Korean piece is now called the Pyongui Line). A few weeks ago, I was walking by the US base at Yongsan -- which the Imperial Japanese Army constructed during the Russo-Japanese war -- and saw what looks like the remains of a small spur line connecting the base proper to nearby Yongsan station. No idea whether it's original or not -- we might have built a new spur line after WW2 or the Korean War to supply our occupation forces -- but it was interesting to see.

Once you transition over to Manchuria, a lot of the rail lines were originally laid down by the Russian Empire, as part of their effort to assert domination over the northeastern provinces of Qing dynasty China. I'm not sure who build the line running from Sinuiju to Shenyang (better known, in this period, as Mukden, but also reflected as Fengtian on some maps). There's newer High Speed Rail from Shenyang to Beijing, though. Maybe the DPRK train is able to take that direct line, rather than running through Tianjin? It sounds like they completely disrupted travel in the northeast of China.; 3/27/18, 11:17 AM
alan markus said...: Does the train have a name? Like "Amerika"?; 3/27/18, 12:29 PM
D 2 said...: Presumed mandatory playlist for house band on trip:

Love Train
Crazy Train
Train in Vain
Silver Train
Last Train to Clarksville
Midnight Train to Georgia
Runaway Train
(Union break)
Take the A Train
Takes a Lot to Laugh, it takes a Train to Cry
Slow Train
Fast Train
Downtown Train (Waits not Rod)
Train Song
Come on Train (northern Soul hit to get everyone on dance floor)
Love Train remix

Encore: Tuesdays Gone; 3/27/18, 12:34 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Meade and I were just riffing a the train songs. Ours were:

Mystery Train
There’s a Train a-Comin’
This Train
Peace Train; 3/27/18, 12:55 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Downbound Train; 3/27/18, 12:57 PM
Ann Althouse said...: There’s a Train a-Comin

The title is actually People Get Ready; 3/27/18, 12:58 PM
tcrosse said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/27/18, 1:15 PM
tcrosse said...: Seoul Train.; 3/27/18, 1:16 PM
Balfegor said...: Snowpiercer; 3/27/18, 1:28 PM
David said...: Lobster. Cognac. Dancing Ladies.

Perfect.; 3/27/18, 2:08 PM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Don't be sleepin' on Casey Jones . . .; 3/27/18, 2:09 PM
Nonapod said...: The Russo-Japanese war is fascinating to me too. It was basically the first modern war with big modern battleships and artillery, sort of a preview for the first world war. It was also Japan's debut on the world stage as a emergent super power. At the time everybody assumed that Japan would get their butts kicked by the older, more experience superpower (boy were they wrong). In many ways it was the beginning of the end of the Russian Empire. It was very important for a number of other reasons too, yet it's not discussed much in the West.; 3/27/18, 2:14 PM
D 2 said...: As long as not Rod's version (re People Get Ready) I accept taking out Tuesdays Gone as the encore. It is more in keeping with the trips (& upcoming summits?) purported intent, even if Tuesdays is the best semi-train related song.

Hey, just imagine sixty minutes doing a documentary of the possible summit. Needs to recognize all the possile negatives, sure. But then imagine ending the segment with shots of trains moving across the midwest, then a shot of Kims train moving back across Asia, with a sun rising on a new day. People Get Ready in the background.

Naaaahhhhhhhh. Just jiving.. Not in 2018. Other years...... perhaps.

In 2018, we get Stormy Mondays.; 3/27/18, 2:14 PM
Hagar said...: Not exactly, Nonapod. You need to read up on the 1st Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.; 3/27/18, 2:22 PM
John henry said...: My graddaddy didn't die. He went to Korea to hammer for the Japanese.

He hammered in the morning, he hammered in the evening, he hammered out love between a cute Korean girl grandma never found out about

John Henry; 3/27/18, 2:28 PM
John henry said...: More important than what he is doing in China is whether he will be leaving China

John Henry; 3/27/18, 2:29 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Where's the polonium when you need it.; 3/27/18, 2:52 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Hagar:

Not exactly, Nonapod. You need to read up on the 1st Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.

Ah, yes -- Round 1 of the competition for domination of Korea. Round 2 was the Russo-Japanese War, and Round 3 was World War II.

It's different from the Russo-Japanese War, though. The Qing Empire did have modern battleships, but the Beiyang Fleet was kind of a shambles, and the Nanyang Fleet didn't show up to fight at all because they had a grudge from an earlier conflict where the Beiyang Fleet didn't come to their aid. The battle for Port Arthur in the Sino-Japanese War was over and done with a couple of days -- it wasn't like that during the Russo-Japanese War. That siege of Port Arthur is probably what Nonapod is thinking of . . .; 3/27/18, 3:11 PM
tcrosse said...: He's got a ticket to ride, and Xi don't care.; 3/27/18, 4:37 PM
Paul said...: I suspect Kim Jong got a ONE WAY RIDE TO Beijing .... hint hint. They now have him.. will he get a bullet in the neck?; 3/27/18, 5:42 PM
Jaq said...: He travels like Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne.; 3/27/18, 5:45 PM
Jaq said...: It was very important for a number of other reasons too, yet it's not discussed much in the West.

I believe it was the first time a non-Western nation beat a European power in a full on war, not just a battle here and there, or a war of attrition, like Afghanistan and the Brits, but open warfare, full scale.; 3/27/18, 6:41 PM
Drago said...: Nonapod: "It was very important for a number of other reasons too, yet it's not discussed much in the West."

Projection of power via naval power.

The defeat of the Russians by the Japanese at Tsushima immediately gave the Japanese grand ideas about taking on the US eventually (as well as the Brits).

Needless to say, they eventually followed through on that.

However, strategically speaking, it would be entirely appropriate to say that Japan began to lose the war in the Pacific right about 8am on Sunday, Dec 7, 1941.; 3/27/18, 7:00 PM
NKP said...: "Meade and I were just riffing a the train songs. Ours were:

Mystery Train
There’s a Train a-Comin’
This Train
Peace Train"

and mine...

Wabash Cannonball (Ricky Skaggs w/Chieftains)
King of the Road
Chattanooga Choo Choo
City of New Orleans
Mystery Train; 3/27/18, 11:21 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Paul said...
I suspect Kim Jong got a ONE WAY RIDE TO Beijing .... hint hint. They now have him.. will he get a bullet in the neck?

3/27/18, 5:42 PM; 3/28/18, 9:48 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Paul said...
I suspect Kim Jong got a ONE WAY RIDE TO Beijing .... hint hint. They now have him.. will he get a bullet in the neck?

3/27/18, 5:42 PM

No, according to Xinhua according to Buwaya on another thread, it appears that KJU, as Mason Verger or Hannibal Lecter might say, has taken the chocolate.; 3/28/18, 9:49 AM
mikee said...: The man should be tried like the Ceausescu family, with similar outcome. A fair, 30 minute trial by three captains, then execution.; 3/28/18, 11:18 AM
Rusty said...: I read : Bulletproof, slow and full of wine" and thought, Hillary?; 3/28/18, 1:27 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Drago:

However, strategically speaking, it would be entirely appropriate to say that Japan began to lose the war in the Pacific right about 8am on Sunday, Dec 7, 1941.

Frankly, I would date it earlier, to the decision to invade French Indochina, then controlled by Vichy France, to block supply to the Chinese armies. The Western Powers didn't care a whit what Japan had been doing in China since 1937 -- they might tut tut here and there, but here in the US we continued to supply them with the vast quantities of oil and scrap metal they needed for their fight. But once it became apparent that our colonial empires were also under threat, we moved with alacrity to shut down those supply lines, first with the passage of the Export Control Act (July 1940, shortly after Japan began issuing ultimatums to France) and then the expansion of coverage to scrap metal (October 1940, shortly after the actual invasion). Although the US didn't actually block oil supplies to Japan until August 1941, it had become clear they couldn't depend on US oil indefinitely.

At that point, basically everything else was inevitable. Without US oil, they needed another source (the Dutch East Indies). If they attacked the Dutch colonies from, say, Taiwan, their supply lines were open to easy attack from the US colony in the Philippines and the British colonies in Malaya and the Straits Settlements. So they needed to take those too. And if they were going to attack the Philippines, they needed to strike at the US naval base in Pearl Harbor to prevent our navy from responding effectively to an attack on our colonial empire.

Or, you know, they could just have stopped trying to take over the rest of China and contented themselves with their territorial gains of like 50% of China. But the Army would never have stood for that. And they had veto power over the government.

So war it was.; 3/28/18, 2:54 PM
Josephbleau said...: Blogger Rusty said...
I read : Bulletproof, slow and full of wine" and thought, Hillary?

Bulletproof, slow and full of wine, perhaps not the worst of lifestyle choices.; 3/28/18, 5:25 PM
Unknown said...: Y'all forgot Locomotive Breath:
"Old Charlie stole the handle and
The train it won't stop going
No way to slow down"; 3/29/18, 7:21 AM