A. Barton Hinkle on Dennis Rodman and North Korea

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North Korea
Credit: Kalleboo/Foter.com

North Korea is a prison state where all TV sets are permanently tuned to state channels. Where the state has a Byzantine classification system that divides the citizenry into 53 categories of loyalty. Where there is no freedom of movement. Or the press. Or religion. Or, for that matter, anything else. It was to this world that former NBA star Dennis Rodman came last week, observes A. Barton Hinkle, where Rodman watched some basketball and yukked it up with North Korea's new dictator, Kim Jong-un. "They had a grand old time," according to the organizer of the trip. Rodman publicly told Kim that "you have a friend for life."