Panem et Circenses
Yesterday, South Korean television broadcast an astonishing performance of the Pyongyang Circus in Monte Carlo. More of an acrobatic performance than a circus, it was full of amazingly death-defying feats of the aerial trapeze artists. It was even better than the two best acrobatic performaces I have seen live: a Chinese acrobatic team that toured South Korea two years ago, and the Cuban National Circus, which I saw in Chile about a decade ago.
Communist regimes do an outstanding job in providing their populaces with circenses. (Of course, the secret to this success is that from childhood the performers undergo rigorous and brutal training that parents of any democracy would not tolerate.) It's a tragedy and a crime that these Communist countries, especially North Korea, are so abyssmal at providing their people with adequate panem.
Yesterday, South Korean television broadcast an astonishing performance of the Pyongyang Circus in Monte Carlo. More of an acrobatic performance than a circus, it was full of amazingly death-defying feats of the aerial trapeze artists. It was even better than the two best acrobatic performaces I have seen live: a Chinese acrobatic team that toured South Korea two years ago, and the Cuban National Circus, which I saw in Chile about a decade ago.
Communist regimes do an outstanding job in providing their populaces with circenses. (Of course, the secret to this success is that from childhood the performers undergo rigorous and brutal training that parents of any democracy would not tolerate.) It's a tragedy and a crime that these Communist countries, especially North Korea, are so abyssmal at providing their people with adequate panem.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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