Stallone, Carter, and Kim Jong-il Walk Into a Bar
June 15th, 2011
Actually, what I suspect happened is that an editor walked into a meeting at the beginning of September and said, “Alrighty: the dudes of the week, improbably enough, are Jimmy Carter, Sly Stallone, and Kim Jong-il. One of you lucky suckers is going to get to write a cover story that somehow links the three together.”
Zhang Yue (张悦) got the job, and did an admirable job of uniting this terrible trinity in an article entitled: “Kim Jong-il, Carter, Stallone: Old Men Who Haven’t Yet Responded to Their Curtain Call” (金正日，卡特，史泰龙：老男人未到谢幕时). Opening with a commentary on Hollywood (“Be careful, we’re being haunted by old guys”), the intro gives several examples of the staying power, so to speak, of old men in Hollywood, Cantopop, and global politics.
In addition to the aforementioned “old warhorses that cherish further exploits” (老骥伏枥), the author points out that Deng Xiaoping was already way past retirement age (mid-70s) when he launched reform and opening. When Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US in 1979, Prez Jimmy Carter ...read more
