The high that I had mentioned in my blog post of yesterweek more than just dissipated. It was arrested in its dissipation and completely destroyed. Terminated.

At least some people's lives are gaining momentum. North Koreans who defected to the South are taking a bold, albeit very risky, approach to the quagmiric conundrum that is North Korea's elite. This comes especially after fresh allegations that the inimical North torpedoed South Korean naval craft.

I mean, how far will the North's pride go? Will they want these newly out-and-relatively-proud defectors to return to Dear Leader? If so, what will he brazenly do in attempts to "reherd" these "lost sheep" for either their sentencing to eternal labor or their immediate slaughter at the abattoir. (That is not to deny that North Korea in itself is an existential abattoir.)

Ms. Choi's brother-in-law is already imprisoned, and her father and sister have already been followed. Has this audacity to come out at such an inopportune time cost their cross-border family members? Will they be branded on the forehead with the word "leverage"?




Disclaimer's Note: Despite the allusions to farm life and the animal metaphors, my intent is in no way to suggest that the North Korean people are any more animals than we are.