RG

That Hitler picture got me to thinking about other monsters. Why is it always Hitler? Stalin was worse. So was Mao. But those are just the big names. I thought of Idi Amin, whom you probably don't even remember.


Maybe from SNL sketches.


He did love the medals, that Idi. I think I see a Vlasics Pickles jarlid over on his mid lower chest area. No, lower. Lower. At the bottom. We'll call it chest. Perhaps half a million killed. Hard to keep track. He died in 2003, in Jeddah. He was demented even back when he was in power, but he died utterly insane, from syphilitic degeneration.

There's Che. What, you thought he was heroic?


You shouldn't let your political opinions be formed by teeshirts. 

This is how I like to remember him:

But Che doesn't really rank up there with the big monsters. Not enough power. Sufficient evil, but not enough time.

The one I latched onto though was Pol Pot, whose face you wouldn't even recognize.



Not a bad looking man. An air of confidence will do that. You didn't know the face, but you'd heard the name. And you loved the movie. The Killing Fields. Pol Pot was the author, or rather the inspiration.

Allow me to introduce you to some of the denizens, if that's the right word ... no, it isn't. But here are some of the people whose bones cluttered those fields.


Look again. Look close. Make eye-contact. Linger.

I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. They're from the '70s, but the circumstances must have been a tad constrained. All of these children were tortured to death.

What a world.


J