Kim Jong-un limped his way on stage at his grandfather's memorial ceremony today. It's not clear what his injury is — maybe he's just being dramatic — but it's surprising that state TV captured his apparent weakness.
[Illuminated portraits of North Korea's late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il glow amid the dark buildings of central Pyongyang before dawn yesterday. Photo by David Guttenfelder via AP]
A big, tentative congrats to North Korea, whose infamous Ryugyong Hotel (aka the "Hotel of Doom") is slated to open its doors in April 2012—only 24 years after its groundbreaking, and just in time for the 100th birthday celebration of O.G. Most Glorious Leader on High Kim Il-sung. Sadly, he won't be doing the ribbon-cutting because he died in 1994. But his ghost is expected to haunt and place bugs in some of the rooms.
Today, the 15th of April, is "The Day of the Sun" in North Korea, the day on which the nation's founding father Kim Il-sung was born 99 years ago. But unlike his son, Kim Jong-il — who was born magically on Baekdu Mountain under a double rainbow on the same day as the creation of a new star in the sky — the late Kim was just your average Marxist guerilla from a modest background who single handedly defeated the Japanese in World War Two and went on to found the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, all while on his way to becoming the "Great Leader."
