Reality, Made in Asia

This seems vaguely familiar, does anyone remember Big Media reports of the economy starting to tank while Clinton was in office, all I remember was the miracle of the "New Economy" courtesy of the "Internalator".

"Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century"... if you think this has something to do with astronomy, think again.
The deferential moniker is one of 18 titles recently listed by Harper's Magazine. The titles, North Korea's state television announced last year, were used by "prominent leaders from 160 nations across the world" to describe the country's "dear leader" Kim Jong-Il.

The list includes names like "Greatest Saint Who Rules with Extensive Magnanimity," "Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness," and "Guardian Deity of the Planet"... all more than justified for a man whose birth was allegedly marked by a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky.

Even though there's no mention of wise men and angels in his birth records, we assume some might have hung around the log cabin on North Korea's highest mountain where, as legend has it, Kim jr. took his first breath.
We can think of a few prominent leaders who may call Kim Jong-Il the "Supreme Commander at the Forefront of the Struggle Against Imperialism and the United States" (or short, SCATFOTSAIATUS). However, it is much harder to imagine a Vladimir Putin or Hu Jintao referring to him as "Eternal Bosom of Hot Love."

But North Korea's propaganda machine is not the only one working overtime. In 2004, two pirated translations of Bill Clinton's memoir My Life showed up in China, parts of which were re-translated into English by Harper's Magazine (they seem to have a knack for these things).

According to the Chinese version of My Life, even as a child Clinton felt an overwhelming love and admiration for Chinese culture and politics, and considers rulers like Mao Zedong and "Chief Architect" Deng Xiaoping his intellectual mentors. Mysteriously, the American original shows little evidence of this.

While critical sentences like "I was concerned about China's continued suppression of basic freedoms" were removed from the Chinese translation, the translators took considerable creative liberty in adding to the former President's narrative... here's a short excerpt:

"It was from [my uncle] Buddy that I first heard that China was one of the world's most ancient cultures, that in ancient times its technology was already very advanced, and that very early on it had produced the Four Great Inventions. Take, for example, the cannons that were tested in Buddy's munitions factory. Originally, gunpowder was invented by the Chinese. Not only that, the compass, printing, and paper were also great creations of the Chinese people." [See more here.]

On the other hand, we find it endearing that the Chinese don't seem to have much sympathy for elaborate descriptions that have nothing to do with their country. As the New York Times pointed out, "the very long opening sentence of Mr. Clinton's version, which takes 48 words to detail his birth" turned into a simple "The town of Hope, where I was born, has very good feng shui."