May 20, 2015

Kim Jong Un is critical of the terrapin farm.



He said: "It is hard to understand that the farm visited by Kim Jong Il did not arrange even the room for education in revolutionary history. The employees who failed to bear deep in their minds his leadership exploits could hardly perform their role as masters in production."

The CNN headline is "No fresh lobster? Kim Jong Un takes aim at North Korean terrapin farm." But the text says: "The farm was also meant to breed freshwater lobsters." Freshwater lobsters are crayfish. If I order "fresh lobster" at The CNN Restaurant and I get a plate of crawdads, I'll be powerfully displeased.

And as long as I'm pointing a finger of denouncement at CNN, I have to wonder about the translation that led to "terrapin." A terrapin is only a type of turtle... you know, the type of turtle that dances and plays the tambourine in front of a log cabin:



Turtles and crayfish are not even in the same phylum.

54 comments:

JPS said...

"He say perhaps he should…fire his translator."

Known Unknown said...

I can't believe in this day and age we still have dickhead despots and hermitic hellhole kingdoms.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I was kind of shocked when I found out that snapper soup was turtle soup. I just assumed it was made from juvenile bluefish, which we called snappers.

Who the hell would eat a turtle?

I had a pet turtle when I was a kid. I can't imagine anyone ever had a pet bluefish.

Sebastian said...

How many of the scribbling sycophants will be turned into lobster food by the end of the year?

Etienne said...

A Phyla for my Kingdom.

I'm thinking they have a thriving Soylent Green production anyway.

I mean, what to do with all the bodies. Even Germany couldn't burn them fast enough.

Mmmph... Mmmph s o y l e n t...

CStanley said...

The whole article reads like a bad google translation, but I'm pretty sure they aren't mistakenly calling crawfish terrapins. I think the place actually is a terrapin (turtle) farm but they've also been directed to raise some of the lobsters for fancy state dinners, and have failed to do so.

Big Mike said...

Can't I just eat my waffle, er, pancakes?

Yes, I know. That's a tortoise. These are the Terrapins.

madAsHell said...

Who does his hair??

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Imagine how pissed off he was when they told him they couldn't meet his demand for sharks with frickin' lasers.

Etienne said...

You know, if someone just stepped forward and slashed his throat, they could end it all.

Original Mike said...

I love how they're all taking notes.

Bob Ellison said...

Original Mike, I had the same thought. Seven guys, all older and smarter than this dick, and they're all taking notes. Maybe they're all drawing maps southward.

tim in vermont said...

I can't believe in this day and age we still have dickhead despots and hermitic hellhole kingdoms.

It's "pseudo socialism" because we all know that real socialism never turns out to concentrate the power into a single family that passes it on as a hereditary right. Nope, that would never happen.

Sal said...

I can't believe in this day and age we still have dickhead despots and hermitic hellhole kingdoms.

Also said by someone 500 years ago, and will be said again 500 years from now.

Original Mike said...

I wonder if they're actually writing anything. Dear Leader (Is it Dear?; I get my NK Leaders mixed up) should collect them all and check.

Bob Ellison said...

By the way, here's a really good turtle soup recipe.

LarryK said...

Terrapin is also a brewery, although a brewery named after turtles (and whose beer is inspired by, and a tribute to, the Grateful Dead)

http://terrapinbeer.com/


Bob Ellison said...

I don't get the turtle/tortoise distinction. They're pretty much the same animal-- shells on the back, like water, move like, well, turtles.

It's like the hare/rabbit distinction, or the pony/horse distinction.

Xmas said...

Giant crayfish are monsters.

It's the same with Indian Ocean prawns. You think prawns=shrimp, behold the delicious (and apparently invasive)Tiger Prawn.

MayBee said...

MRG said...
"Also said by someone 500 years ago, and will be said again 500 years from now. "

Yes! Thank you, MRG!

One of my favorite thoughts is how it has always been "this day and age", "these modern times", or "the year [-]!"

People have forever known they are living on the leading edge of time. People in the past weren't thinking they were living in the past, with the modern times ahead of them.

MayBee said...

MRG said...
"Also said by someone 500 years ago, and will be said again 500 years from now. "

Yes! Thank you, MRG!

One of my favorite thoughts is how it has always been "this day and age", "these modern times", or "the year [-]!"

People have forever known they are living on the leading edge of time. People in the past weren't thinking they were living in the past, with the modern times ahead of them.

steve uhr said...

Very sad the decent people of North Korea have to live their entire lives in such misery under a crazy and cruel asshole. What's stopping us from assassinating him with a Drone? His nuclear weapons? S. Korea's fear its economy will go in the toilet if they have to absorb the North? Must be something we can do.

Heartless Aztec said...

Execution by launched terrapins (or crayfish/lobsters depending on your translation). Trebuchets at 20 paces.

Mary Beth said...

They're pretty much the same animal-- shells on the back, like water, move like, well, turtles.

Turtle swim, tortoises are land animals. Some people in Florida have been getting them confused.

stutefish said...


EMD: "I can't believe in this day and age we still have dickhead despots and hermitic hellhole kingdoms."

I can. This day and age isn't more special than any other in terms of human nature.

Bob Ellison said...

Mary Beth, good point. But who thinks throwing a dolphin into Lake Superior would be a good idea, or throwing a penguin into the Arctic Ocean?

These questions don't help answer. This is a taxonomic problem. Turtles and tortoises are very closely related, and we confuse people when we insist on their differences.

Ann Althouse said...

Wikipedia says: "There are differences in usage of the common terms turtle, tortoise, and terrapin, depending on the variety of English being used; usage is inconsistent and contradictory. These terms are common names and do not reflect precise biological or taxonomic distinctions. The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists uses "turtle" to describe all species of the order Testudines, regardless of whether they are land-dwelling or sea-dwelling, and uses "tortoise" as a more specific term for slow-moving terrestrial species. General American usage agrees; turtle is often a general term (although some restrict it to aquatic turtles); tortoise is used only in reference to terrestrial turtles or, more narrowly, only those members of Testudinidae, the family of modern land tortoises; and terrapin may refer to turtles that that are small and live in fresh and brackish water, in particular the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin). In America, for example, the members of the genus Terrapene dwell on land, yet are referred to as box turtles rather than tortoises."

kcom said...

"Very sad"

Beyond sad. How would you like to live out the movie "70 Years a Slave"? Your entire life thrown away for someone else's ego.

This is the kind of thing they're referring to when they talk about "bear deep in their minds his leadership exploits". The sycophancy is mind-boggling.

Well, I meant to include a link above but I couldn't find the North Korean documentary I watched (part of) a year or so ago. It was about Kim Jong-Il and was simply staggering in its hero worship. He apparently wrote and directed every play, made every battle plan, designed every building, wrote and published every magazine and newspaper ever in North Korea (if you believe what they were saying).

MayBee said...

His father ate roast donkey, but it was called "Golden Cow"

Wilbur said...

My favorite turtle was Tooter Turtle.

Drizzle, drazzle, drozzle drone
Time for this one to come home

Ann Althouse said...

"Beyond sad. How would you like to live out the movie "70 Years a Slave"? Your entire life thrown away for someone else's ego."

Be honest: What would you do if you lived there? How would you behave?

Ann Althouse said...

"Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you – although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them."

Wrote Paul to the Corinthians.

Rusty said...

Coupe said...
You know, if someone just stepped forward and slashed his throat, they could end it all.

Because they live like feudal lords in NKorea. Kill their master and all that ends.
So shut up and keep writing. It's a small price to pay.


Just for the fun of it go to NKorea in Google maps. Blow it up as big as you can and try and spot the summer homes and playgrounds of the elite.

Brando said...

The two Koreas are a perfect experiment in what happens under totalitarian communism vs. relative free markets and free society. Two countries of approximately equal size and populations (initially) with a shared culture and racial background, and approximately the same resources, and we see what the two different directions has wrought for each.

It would be satisfying for one of Kim's inner circle to carefully mask his intentions and then murder the bastard. No murderous despot deserves to die of old age.

JAORE said...

It's terrapins all the way down.

JSD said...

I would hesitate in calling South Korea a free market/free society. The 1979 coup was a really crazy event that people still can’t explain what happened. They had a Waco biker style shootout in the Blue House (their equivalent of the White House). My brother was stationed there at the time. There was a 24 hour period where the US was completely in the dark and fingers were on the trigger.

If you’re going to put Terrapin Station in the post, you need the obligatory Grateful Dead comment. Unfortunately, the Terrapin Station album was terrible. They had a great run under Warner Brothers culminating with “Europe 72”. After Pigpen died, the Dead turned into a boho art fart band. In his heyday, Garcia could blaze through old school Chuck Berry rock and roll like nobody else. He also played a pretty good pedal steel guitar, which is no easy feat. At the end, poor Jerry was a junky being propped by an extended family of leeches.

Regarding eating turtle, there’s always the Turtle Soup au Sherry at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Yum.

mikee said...

It is all good clean fun to ridicule the genocidal 3rd generation totalitarian dictator of North Korea, and the CNN syphocants who honor him, just remember that he should be in the Hague being prepared for his death sentence for crimes against humanity.

That he is not speaks ill of the ICC.

DanTheMan said...

>>Be honest: What would you do if you lived there? How would you behave?

Well, we have Elian Gonzalez and his mother as an example of what people would do if they lived in such a place.

If they had escaped from NK to SK, who would have supported sending him back?

Etienne said...

Rusty, I like to look at the USS Pueblo on Google Satellite.

Pretty neat they have kept the boat in nice condition.

The Israelis blew up it's sister ship USS Liberty. I don't think it's on display anywhere.

So there's that...

Quaestor said...

Ann quoting the Apostle Paul:
"Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you – although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings. Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them."

Famously used in the antebellum South to condemn the abolitionists.

Fritz said...

Turtles and crayfish are not even in the same phylum.

True, but you can use both to make a pretty good gumbo.

Brando said...

"I would hesitate in calling South Korea a free market/free society"

Yeah, that's why I said "relative"--certainly compared to NK or even China, the SKs have embraced capitalism and openness. The change in direction has made them a much wealthier nation with far better quality of life than their countrymen across the border. It's tragic when you consider that the Norks could be living like that had the Korean War turned out a bit differently.

Civilis said...

It's one thing to say, "I'm willing to die, even quite horribly, to kill the evil dictator", it's quite another to say "I'm willing to condemn my wife, kids, parents, grandparents, cousins, and probably everyone I know to a horrible, painful death to kill the evil dictator." They don't go for half measures for punishment for that level of treason for a reason; it's effective because it's so cruel.

Temujin said...

This is CNN.

eddie willers said...

Though I consider most of the Dead's output to be long-winded drivel, Workingman's Dead is a Desert Island Disc.

A true masterpiece.

JSD said...

The 1979 coup was an absolutely insane event. At an elaborate banquet, President Park got into a heated argument with Korean CIA Director Kim over what to do about the street protests. It erupted into a shootout between them and their respective staffs. President Park took one in the head and one in the gut and died. A total of six people died in the shootout. Was it a planned assignation or just an impulse? Nobody knows. It’s now known as the 10.26 incident. Koreans are often called the Irish of the Orient.

Danno said...

Well, maybe Kim Jong Un could execute the staff of CNN with his antiaircraft gun.

Ann Althouse said...

"Famously used in the antebellum South to condemn the abolitionists."

You can only use it that way if you cut it down or twist it in a way that would, in my opinion, prove that you are not a Christian.

Paul is saying that if you are a slave, you should take your freedom if you can get it. But if you can't, you should be a Christian and see yourself as belonging directly to God.

That is not addressed at the owners of slaves, but at the slaves themselves.

If I were living in North Korea, or under some completely violent and repressive regime, I would probably try to live a good life within the limitations, but if there was a way to become free, I would take it.

Ann Althouse said...

To say that is not to justify the violent and repressive regime.

Rusty said...

Be honest: What would you do if you lived there? How would you behave?

That depends.
Do you mean having lived here and then being dropped into that society?
Or having grown up in it?
The first one. I'd probably wind up dead or in a labor camp in short order. I'm pretty much the same in person as I am on line.
The other. I'd grumbling knuckle under knowing my family would have to pay for my misdeeds as well.

MaxedOutMama said...

Well, if every enterprise is expected to spend a lot of time and effort in revolutionary education, then perhaps the economic inefficiencies are easily explained.

One man's (or woman's) ego is not a very good basis for a functional state.

Will Cate said...

"Some rise...
some fall...
some climb...
to get to Terrapin"

-- Hunter/Garcia

jr565 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jr565 said...

terrapin station. Ah, memories. Not really of the album but rather Led Zeppelin. By way of the grateful dead.
Back in junior high the cool kids we hung out with liked the Grateful Dead, and hated Led Zeppelin.
And we were also cool if we too liked the dead and hated Led Zeppelin.
Anyway, one of my dick friends who wasn't really much of a friend, but who I hung out with thought he'd teach me a lesson and make me seem uncool.
So I went to his house to listen to the grateful dead for the first time.
he took out the album Terrpin station.
But instead of playing Terrapin station he played D'yer Maker by Led Zeppelin. And asked what I thought.
That song blew me away.
then he revealed that I was actually listening to Led Zeppelin, and was thus uncool because I liked it.
Jokes on him though as D'yer Maker kicks pretty much destroys Terrapin Staion six ways to Sunday.