What's truly surreal is that the Kim Jong-il funeral vehicle story seems to have such long "legs," especially when you consider most newspapers and TV news shows emanating from NYC are put together by people with very little interest in or exposure to cars beyond the Crown Victoria taxis taking them home to the Upper East Side each night.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, for example, brought the Lincolns up in the lead paragraph of a story that ran just yesterday (January 7th) on how imported luxury goods are still reaching North Korea's elite in spite of various trade sanctions (China, as you all might already suspect, was the source for most of the 3,191 cars North Korea imported in 2010). Kim Jong-il's Continentals were also the first thing Brian Williams mentioned on last Monday's edition of the NBC Nightly Newswhen he turned to the top year-end stories his audience might have missed amidst their Christmas and New Year's celebrations.
If you're seeking solid proof that life remains harsh and primitive for most North Koreans, it's hard to top the numerous satellite photo that can be found on the web of the Korean Peninsula at night. South Korea is absolutely awash in artificial light from the capital Seoul in the northwest to Pusan in the southeast, while the only thing illuminated on the opposite side of the DMZ appears to be Kim Jong-un's porch light!
