Global POV: At the Intersection of Technology and Culture

The lapdog of luxury

by David Holtzman

At last we know what luxury truly is. As a way of getting Kim Jong, the North Korean strongman, to behave better, the US and allied countries are denying him his creature comforts by banning export of luxurious items to the nutcase country. Each ally is reserving the right to define such for itself.

So here's a partial list of verbotten bootie:

1. Segways
   
2. Televisions bigger than 29"
   
3. iPods
   
4. cognac (The Post claims that Kim Jong Il spends $800,000 a year on the stuff)
   
5. caviar
   

Perhaps we should go the other way around and only export antiluxury things that will wear him down, like we drove Noriega out of his headquarters by playing Guns and Roses "Welcome to the Jungle."

I suggest:

1. Celine Dion records
   
2. Easy Mac
   
3. A beta copy of Microsoft's new operating system Vista
   

Posted on November 30, 2006