fix.py

def to_unicode_or_bust(obj, encoding='utf-8'):
    """
    http://farmdev.com/talks/unicode/
    """
    if isinstance(obj, basestring):
        if not isinstance(obj, unicode):
            obj = unicode(obj, encoding)
    return obj

UnicodeHandler.py

import Cheetah.Filters

class UnicodeHarder(Cheetah.Filters.Filter):
    def filter(self, val,
               encoding='utf8',
               str=str,
               **kw):
        """ Try our best to unicode our strings """
        if not val:
            return u''
        if isinstance(val, unicode):
            return val
        try:
            return val.decode('utf-8', 'strict')
        except UnicodeDecodeError:
            try:
                return val.decode('latin-1', 'strict')
            except UnicodeDecodeError:
                return val.decode('ascii', 'ignore')
        except AttributeError:
            return unicode(val)
        return val

UnicodeMixin.py

import functools

class UnicodeMixin(object):
    """Mixin class to handle defining the proper __str__/__unicode__
    methods in Python 2 or 3."""

  if PY3:
    def __str__(self):
        return self.__unicode__()
  else:
    def __str__(self):
        return self.__unicode__().encode('utf8')


def console_safe(func):
    """ Decorator for making unicode functions console-friendly """
    if PY3:
        return func
   
    @functools.wraps(func)
    def inner(*args, **kwargs)
        res = func(*args, **kwargs)
        if isinstance(res, text_type): # XXX: use assert?
            res = res.encode('unicode-escape')
        return res

    return inner
     

class SomeNltkClass(SomeNltkBase, UnicodeMixin):
    # ...
    def __unicode__(self):
        return ...

    @console_safe
    def __repr__(self):
        return self.__unicode__()