Soulmate Post

Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Ze-dong, and now Kim Jong Il – these are the names you are most likely to spot when you search “world’s worst dictators” on Google. Marked by horrifying crimes and selfish actions, their reigns were almost always seen in a negative light. These crimes, however, were never carried out strictly on their own. I began to wonder what kind of people would stand firmly behind these dictators to fulfill their anti-humanitarian missions.

Finding “eccovento” (username) on Delicious.com was the most perfect answer to my question. With general tags like “North Korea,” “Kim Jung Il” and “unification” and inactivity over the past few years, his page was almost overlooked had it not been my curiosity to click on an article titled “TheAxis of Hackensack: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com.” It struck my interest that Vanity Fair, a magazine mostly concerned with celebrity gossip and socialite parties and maybe the president’s ex-lovers on a political day, would write anything related to North Korea.

And I found my gem.

The lengthy 10-page article starts off with a detailed description of the most recent meeting between North Korean ambassadors and their beloved friend / barbecue joint owner, Bobby Egan, from New Jersey. Although it begins in a fairly casual tone as if discussing a nice little lunch between old friends, it soon probes into the mysterious relationship that these people seem to have kept for a long time. As a former FBI informant, Egan displays quite an interesting attitude: he seems to pay utmost respect to his “axis of evil” members from North Korea, yet he refuses to take sides regarding the nuclear conflict between his mother country and theirs.

A different article also bookmarked by “eccovento” was a NewYorker story about Bobby Egan, this time a little more personal as it relies mostly on one-on-one interview with the man. It served as an ideal counterpart to the previous article, together providing a complete package composed of thorough background, in-depth analysis and personal thoughts of Egan. After giving the readers a detailed biography of Egan and his former “suspicious” political activities, the writers of two articles begin to probe into the sphere of international “friendships” and how far is too far when it comes to communicating with the “enemies.”

Considering that he also bookmarked the popular “KoreanUnification Studies” blog that exploits all the wrongdoings of the North Korean government while updating the world about their whereabouts, “eccovento” seems to be less interested in the heart-touching humanitarian accounts of the suffering North Koreans and more intrigued by their political leaders’ schemes. If he ever decides to come back to social bookmarking to add to his library of six articles, I would love to follow him to find more gems that I might have missed in the newspapers. His sources are great for anyone fascinated by the minds of world’s most dangerous communists and how they function in the real world outside of their Hermit Kingdom.