Communism: Brought to you by National Brand toothpaste since the early Twentieth Century. Part 1?

Why part 1? Maybe I'm going to write a series about it. You don't know. This is my blog and I run it like a dictatorship. In the fine tradition of North Americans who are too busy to say two words when one mangled one will do, this is a Blogtatorship.

Watched a great documentary on PBS last night. Yeah, I’m 79, so what? I did other fun things early in the evening and if I want to tuck myself in with a documentary about North Korea, than that’s what I’m going to do!

As an aside: why is so much awesome television on at 3 in the morning? I mean, you've got some great lectures on TVO, great documentary on PBS and if you get bored of that, all the phone sex options that one girl could possibly want!

Ahem.

The thing is, every time I hear something or read something about a Communist regime it sounds like sunshine and daisies to me, at first. Aside from the scary reverence of that funny looking short guy that runs their country, Kim Jong-Il, North Koreans used to get a lot for what they gave up. Everyone ate, everyone had a place to live, and their wages could be spent on extras (like hookers or not-hookers, whatever they thought was best).

Right, I think to myself, I knew it. Communism is the way to go. Screw Capitalism, I don't need 15 kinds of toothpaste (especially the ones trying to show off) I’m moving to North Korea. My grandma will freak out, but she freaked out when I mentioned moving to Toronto. My cutting response, "It's Toronto Grandma, not Bosnia." Sorry Bosnia.

But I was hasty. So hasty! Yeah, it's all sunshine and daisies and collectivist farms at first but then there's always some horrible twist. Turns out that from 1995 to 2000 there was a massive famine in North Korea and because they were a communist regime they didn't get the same support as another country would have. Food was brought in, but not nearly enough and a large number of North Koreans were forced to eat some sort of ground up hay mixture that had no nutritional value but made them feel full. Horrifying!

Thanks for killing the dream communist North Korea, thanks a million.