NORTH KOREA: THE SURPRISING CASE OF SOVEREIGNTY GONE SOUR

Hello World,

SOURCE: http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/stanford.ucomm.newsms.media/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/21140014/korea.jpg

North Korea, being a nation equipped with nuclear arsenal, is raising concerns through the missile development program which in essence, is expected to serve as the payload delivery mechanism capable of delivering warheads including the nuclear one. Economic sanctions have been imposed on North Korea multiple times and regional powers in the Asia Pacific region have been warned by the United States regarding the escalating security threat perception in the region, owing to North Korea’s repeated missile testing efforts in spite of warnings and sanctions.

To put things in perspective, any sovereign state is entitled to develop its own defence capabilities to protect its territories and interests, while complying with international law and agreements [varies from country to country]. From this perspective of ‘Rights of a Sovereign State’, North Korea is logically entitled to test and develop any military capability without violating any agreements it had signed in that regard.

However, the state of authoritarian administration in North Korea, driven by policies advocating ideologies what might be classified as ‘secluded nationalism’, presents the country in bad light. News reports alleging the North Korean government’s activities often going against its own citizens can be ignored however the economic situation of the citizens tend to substantiate such allegations presented by news reports. This has, over the long term, presented the North Korean administration as volatile in terms of response to issues, both internally and externally. The long-standing strained relationship with South Korea seems to be focal point of the volatility being attributed to the North Korean administration.

While conclusive evidences for violation of regional and global peace treaties [relevant to North Korea] and that of any alleged human rights violation within its borders is yet to be ascertained, the continued efforts to build warhead delivery mechanisms and test launches directed at and/or over regional neighbours tend to substantiate the allegation on the North Korean government’s intentions of building such military capabilities. The only consolation as of now is the South Korean administration’s declaration that no attack shall be carried out on behalf of South Korea without their prior consent. In essence, the regional peace, in this case, is being largely facilitated by countries that otherwise are facing threats from the military activities of North Korea. This calls for a situation, where regional powers, including North Korea will now have to go further with their efforts to develop suitable military deterrence capabilities, missile defence mechanisms being relevant to this situation. Since the recent missile tests by North Korea indicate its range covering its neighbouring countries, the United States military being present in those regions is facing the same security threats being perceived in the region.

Missile defence is gaining prominence as the post-cold-war era is fading out, evolving new territorial defence requirements. Modern defence requirements, unlike those from the past, do not hold air, land, sea and space as standalone territorial domains. The modern defence mechanisms are expected to be integrated and interoperable both across services and militaries at regional and global level. While building deterrence is primary requirement, it is also equally important for regional powers to negotiate their respective political stances, such that long term diplomatic frictions do not escalate into military conflicts, hurting the citizens and economies of those involved and their neighbours. Given the global circumstances, military conflicts in any regions will have its own repercussions across the globe. 

To put this in perspective, from where I come from, we might use the following adage:

“Sothuke singi, soriyardhuku saxophone kekutha?”

This translates into: When the world is struggling to feed all its citizens asking for a saxophone to scratch [an itch] is beyond stupidity. Meaning, why spend so much on military when there are other essential needs still standing unmet. Accidents and diseases kill more than terrorism and aggressor state activity and still we spend more against terror.

Yes, we have had world wars and we continue to spend more on defense than many other essential needs. Military deterrence is a need but honestly not as much as the growing defense budgets indicate. Besides, defence budgets allow the purchase and upkeep of defence capabilities. War funds are a whole different thing. Given today’s economic circumstances, there is no country in the world that can sustain a war economically. Also, given the same global circumstances, any war between any two entities, irrespective of how far they go to battle with each other, is bound to impact every citizen’s plate and what comes on to it, across the globe. 

From that perspective, given that in today’s time, everyone is aware of where every other one stands, it is in the benefit of all to simply have the military tails coiled up so the focus can be to feed the citizens who are hungry and employ those that are not. Enough of the territorial safety mirage and the associated spending to protect geographies where normal humans can’t survive. When one country builds something to defend itself, naturally others follow suit and it is beyond stupidity to call the followers 'aggressors.' We all have our own ways of interpreting our state’s sovereignty. When some believe in repeated missile tests, there is also a bafoon who believes in retweeting propaganda videos and engaging his own presidential press office to defend such nonsense.

I think I’ve made my point.

Best regards,

STOP THE GENOCIDE AT WANG'S KITCHEN, NOLAMBUR, CHENNAI!!!!!!

Hello World,

IMAGE SOURCE: http://www.burrp.com/chennai/wangs-kitchen-mogappair-listing/416547 

Yes, Long time, No see and I do have a lot to share. However, the circumstances are such that there is a genocide about to happen and I need to stop it.

This is a scream after a visit to The Wang’s Kitchen in Nolambur, Mogappair. 

Set up in the first floor, outdoor stairs leading to the reception, dim yellow lighting enhancing the all familiar Wang’s branding themed in red, the restaurant has a curiously entertaining interiors with downward flight of stairs leading to the dining area where the tables are arranged.

That’s the end of anything and everything positive about this shithouse that might have poisoned me and other guests with possibly the worst zombie-dying microbes ever to have originated in Mars. The problem is, the restaurant is still in operation which means a section of this generation has already been zombie-fied!

Me and my brother-in-law ordered 1 chicken momo, 1 Tshing Hai chicken fried rice [It had a chilli next to it], 2 Egg Fuyong, 1 chicken spring roll and 2 Lemon Mint Coolers.

Chicken Momo:

6 pieces of twisted flour-shit filled with meat paste lay on our plate, frozen and still thawing, drops of dew on it, while some grated cabbage scraped of the kitchen floor lay accidentally on the plate, not knowing if they were part of this evil scheme that aims at eradicating mankind off this section of the multiverse. 

I have a certain amount of tolerance for odd tasting food and still I could not tolerate this seemingly quarter boiled tumour from a dying cat’s gut. My brother-in-law quit after the 2nd piece and it was just me and the momos staring each other for the final showdown. Trying to avoid food wastage I went through the regurgitating experience, hoping, the rest of the meal will serve as the antidote for this slow poison. I was wrong by a million light years in every wrong direction possible.

Tshing Hai Chicken Rice:

The bowl had a mix of rice and vermicelli, which were straight from the dumpster, along with orange coloured pieces of what I am calling chicken and my brother-in-law refusing to believe my guess. The rice had a few shreds of green beans and carrots, again, possibly from unwashed bowl. The moment the bowl landed on our table, we understood the technology, importance and significance of gas masks. We sincerely wished we were better off in a world war, on the ground, during an air raid involving nerve gas. We are absolutely sure, we would have enjoyed sweet death  more comfortably that the smell from the fried rice bowl that deactivated our olfactory capabilities for ever. It doesn’t make sense to live without a sense, especially when the causation smell came from nonsense called Tshing Hai chicken fried rice. I am sure the food tastes awesome but what Wang’s at Nolambur served was worthy of 35 counts of genocide under the influence of Mutating Momos.

The thing had rice and vermicilli or rice noodles in it and so we figured, we can cover up the death-smell and coma-inducing flavour with ketchup. We just did not foresee the operational challenge that was waiting to crash and burn on us. The waiter took a millennium to deliver the ketchup, by which time, we had committed our version of culinary Harakiri. We were already half dead from the Momos. We were just trying to get done with it as soon as possible.

Egg Fuyong:

The fluffy fried egg dish which I used to remember from the other Chinese restaurants is forever gone from my mind. I am merely holding on the index of events like a post-dead vista operating system. What we got was freakin plain omelette with a few shreds of carrots and green beans and few litres of what we would like to assume as oil from the kitchen mist. The horror struck twice when the waiter stepped up to serve it making the egg-splash-vomit into pieces, essentially increasing the frequency of capital punishment for our taste buds. They were already corpses on our tongues. We just did not know why this chaos was manifesting such a design on our lives coming to a close.

Chicken Spring Roll:

The rolls looked just fine externally and the insides were also familiar. We were confused as to why the revival mechanism would enter the game with rules which was anyways more than half done. We got into a mindset that, we still had a chance to recover from whatever was happening to us and this time we were more wrong than Trump in most of his administrative decisions. Even when imminent death was staring at us, we had to compare our thoughts with those of Trump’s. What is the point of demoralisingly degrading our thought process when it was almost confirmed we needed to die? Why was not part of our agenda but we just had to include it. No reason identified yet.

The insides of the chicken rolls, as it turned out, are left-over chicken from earlier manchurian and kung bao massacres that might have inadvertently occurred in the Kitchen of Nolambur’s Wang’s Kitchen. We puked about 17.5 times inside our own mouths and our dying taste buds had to drown in it. Saw, Hostel and the remainder of gore fests seemed like emmy-winning sitcoms. The stench from the almost rotten chicken that was recapitalised to make our chicken rolls, felt like nothing. The reason it felt like nothing was, we were half dead and we were losing our senses one by one, we now were not caring if we could receive and process anything greater than 17% of environmental stimuli we were receiving. We just kept eating hoping it will be done soon.

Lemon Mint Cooler:

This, was the final dose of uplifting enlightenment coloured green and topped with ice and plastic mint leaves. The taste felt like pepsodent toothpaste squeezed into our nostrils while 80% methanol was pumped into our throats  using a firehose. We now realised we were on our way to the section of multiverse, hoping a horned gatekeeper might be there, asking for aadhaar cards and patanjali coupons for herbal painless redemption in the new world. We sincerely hoped that life did not include any food from Wang’s Kitchen.

SOS Call:

Please do not go this place and stop every human from getting caught into the institutionalised genocide, degrading everything that chinese culture stands for and the very concept of hospitality. Wang’s Kitchen Nolambur, please stop killing humans. Shut down this branch and beter, shut down the entire chain, if you think your chain serves standardised flavours across the network. No amount of yoga and herbal crap can prevent the slow death of those who walk by your establishment at Nolambur. If we call yours a restaurant, we will be insulting the entire hospitality/restaurant industry. 

Best regards,