Excuse me, What? (Headlines you don’t Expect Edition)
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, February 26, 2013
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4 comments
Via the BBC: Basketball player Dennis Rodman visits North Korea.
Also, today’s oddly amusing sentence of the day: “North Korea leader Kim Jong-un, who oversaw the country’s recent nuclear test, is known to be a basketball fan.”
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Actually fully deserves a full ‘O – My – God!!’ I was a dumb smuck AirForce enlisted guy in Korea in ’64 – ’65. Was playing around with a Blaupunct S/W receiver that I had back then (oh wow – that’s the frigging BBC!) and picked up a Korean language broadcast of a basketball game. It was hilarious! Da-Da-Da-Da SHOOT!!. Da-Da-Da-Da FOUL! Da-Da-Da-Da TWO POINTS!
Next day I mentioned to a Korean national I worked with that I’d caught that and what the band was. “Oh, yeah” he says, “that’s from the North.”
I remember being amazed that the stalinist devils apparently really loved our game of basketball. Guess they still do.
North Korean media also report Kim measures 6’11 and beat Rodman handily in both 1-on-1 and HORSE.
Do the North Koreans actually use a standard 10′ basket?
/ducks
//still taller than most North Koreans
While visiting the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom on a tour a number of years back (when I was an Air Force senior NCO stationed at Osan Airbase), one of the things they point out to you is that all the North Korean guards there are fairly tall, at least 6 foot. They are described by the North Koreans as “average” height. 🙂