Now that the hoopla has begun to die down over Kim Jong-un’s execution of his uncle—reportedly Mafia-style with machine guns—the Young General is anticipating his athletes shooting a few hoops under the expert tutoring of Dennis Rodman. Kim Jong-un’s best American buddy has just arrived back in North Korea for his third visit of the year. The North Korean athletes—no pressure here!—are in training for an exhibition game which Rodman is organizing with American professional basketball players, scheduled to be held in Pyongyang on January 8—not by coincidence Kim Jong-un’s 31st birthday.
Rodman is anything but modest about his role in this upcoming event. He told the Associated Press in a telephone interview, “I’m going to bring American players over there. Yes, I am. I’m going to be the most famous person in the world when you see American people holding hands and hoping the doors can be opened.” The self-proclaimed “bad boy” with the dyed green hair seems a perfect counterpart for Kim Jong-un. After all, every circus needs a clown. And Rodman is the most noteworthy American to meet personally with the Young General since his assumption of power two years ago. Rodman revealed after the conclusion of his second trip in September that he was even allowed to hold Kim Jong-un’s baby daughter, Ju-ae. It is a rare honor and sign of trust to allow a foreigner to hold the embodiment of the fourth generation of the “Baekdu bloodline” of direct descent from North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung. Rodman, by the way, described the man who murdered his uncle as “a good dad.”
