This strange place has been in the news lately with reports that its despotic leader, Kim Jong Il, may be gravely ill with a stroke. Or, according to a Japanese journalist, actually dead for several years with trained look-a-likes taking his place. Whatever has or hasn't happened, Kim Jong Il did not show up on an important anniversary of his country's founding.

I traveled to the DPRK in 1989 with a team of journalists. At the time, Kim Il Sung, was still alive and in power. It was truly like going to the moon. Years of autocratic rule had ravaged the country and the minds. Never had I felt such a pervasive paranoia. Such an intense electricity in the air. More than the old Soviet Union. More than any place on Earth, this was an Orwellian human experiment carried out to the extreme.

We ate the local foods. Including a rare and wonderous visit to a "Nang Myun" or cold buckwheat noodle shop. According to folklore/legend, this dish was invented in Pyongyang. I wish I could say that it was the best I had tasted. The dishes were re-used without being cleaned, handed off to the next customer after one was done. My iron-clad stomach experienced the most painful dysentary I had ever suffered. Enough said.

With all the postings about Nari and the South Korea episode, I wonder what Tony would do with a trip to North Korea. This is a formidable assignment. A convergence of politics, ideology, culture, and history. Looking at the visit with Nari's grandfather, I think Tony would do an amazing job communicating the "Alice in Wonderland" feeling you get flying into Pyongyang Airport.

Talk about tragic. To be in a place cut off from the rest of the world. To be in a place where human rights are replaced by the thoughts and wishes of a single leader. To be in a place where so many lives have been impacted for generations to come. What a crazy world, my friend, that such a place exists. You don't want to believe the stories--of how the "Dear Leader" decided to allow the children of his country to starve, rather than accept foreign aid. You don't want to believe that people are shot and killed for the mildest of transgressions.

It took me three years to get in there. I do think it would be a lifetime experience for Tony and NR.