This is an admittedly trivial posting, but KCNA has a short story about Kim Jong-il’s guidance tour of Pothonggang Shop. Last week I posted that General-Secretary Kim was in a more laudatory, kindler, gentler General’s role in his guidance tours, but it seems during the August guidance tour he witheringly enquired of a member of his entourage why there was no elevator in the two-story shop. Perhaps his documented health setbacks incited such concern “for the aged and women.” Of course, General-Secretary Kim did not realize that such amenities as elevators (provided it could be constructed, unlike some Pyongyang apartment buildings) in two-story shops are also utilized by younger people who are too lazy to take the stairs.