Monday, October 4, 2010

Why Aren't Our Leaders "Dear"?

Here in the US, we have elections every four years for the Presidency. It's boringly routine. We have been doing this since 1789, 221 years. Talk about soporific history! And then, when the elections are over, all we have is a President... Mr. President...zzzzz.
What we need to liven things up around here are some cool names for our leader like other countries give to theirs.
Take North Korea.
Now there is a country that really knows how to come up with names for leaders! Their first leader, Kim Il Sung (김일성 in Hangul, 金日成 in Chinese characters, and Imkay Ilay Ungsay in Pig Latin) formally held a lot of the top posts of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but was called "Great Leader". Great Leader works when you are actually "leading", but what happens when you press on to your reward? Good ol' North Korea knows: after his death, he was called "Eternal President".
Imagine how much more appealing someone like President Millard Fillmore (Personal Slogan: Loading...) would be if we could call him "Excellent Leader" or "Bold Commander". The whole election process itself would benefit from this naming approach as it would generate more interest amongst the clearly comatose electorate in this country. You could even have polls to come up with appropriate titles for the candidates before they are elected.
Kim Il Sung's son, Kim Jong Il (김정일, 金正日, and Imkay Ongjay Ilay) is called "Dear Leader" these days, not as robustly masculine as "Great" or "Eternal", but still better than mere "President". After he moves on to the Communist hereafter, no doubt he will be called "Eternal Dear" or some other equally cool appellation.
What's really cool about North Korea (Mission Statement: GO FUCK YOURSELF!), is how they manage to come up with these names. As I am sure all of you know by now, Kim Jong Il is very ill (HAR!) and is trying to pass on the reins of government to his young son, Kim Jong-un (김정은, 金正銀, 金正雲 or 金正恩 [it seems unclear] and Imkay Ongjay unay [which is clear enough for me]). In order to do this, they have to give the young lad an impressive sounding title. What have they come up with? "Young General"! And to make it even better, his father has promoted the Young General (who has absolutely no military experience) to four-star general in the DPRK army. (Pterosaurish can hear the hard-bitten three-star generals' eyes rolling all the way over here in Seattle.)
Speaking of North Korea, did you know that their society is built on the concept of "juche"(oojay ehchay)?
"What is that?!" I hear you ask.
Allow me to answer that important question.
According to the official website of the DPRK, "The Great Leader (Imkay Ilay Ungsay) said: 'The Juche Idea means, in few words, that the owner of the revolution and construction are the people's masses'.
Well let me tell you... we over here in the good ol' U. S. of A. can out juche any country on the planet. Our people's masses would easily win out over the citizens of a pathetic, little country like North Korea. Why just the other day I saw a person waddling down the street whose juche index was off the charts.
But I digress.
The main point of this article was about the cool names that North Korea comes up with for its leaders and how we could learn something from them. So, next Presidential election, how about "High Overseer Obama" for starters?

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