Veteran Korean watcher Aidan Foster-Carter is no softie -- he sparred with Bruce Cumings over the latter's lax treatment of North Korea in "Korea's Place in the Sun" and he frequently pokes fun at often rambling and hysterical sounding North Korean news bulletins while providing useful analysis of them. Unfortunately ever since current nuclear crisis of North Korea started last October, Western coverage of North Korea has begun to resemble shrillness and viciousness of official North Korean press, betraying the writers' ignorance and self-righteous pomposity as Forster-Carter points out.