Ick. Ick. Ick.

Been reading a review of a new history of the gulag. The review quotes a prison memoir of torture by exposure to mosquitos:

The mosquitoes crawled up our sleeves, under our trousers. One’s face would blow up from the bites. At the work site, we were brought lunch, and it happened that as you were eating your soup, the mosquitoes would fill up the bowl like buckwheat porridge. They filled up your eyes, your nose and throat, and the taste of them was sweet, like blood.

I used to read the Hellblazer comic from DC/Vertigo, and there was this one part of it that I remember clearly: the hero is investigating some evil and finds a junkie cowering in a bathtub in some squalid dive, shivering and sick from withdrawl. He says he feels like insects are crawling all over him, it’s all he can do not to try and tear them away. Only, he’s actually covered in insects.

Some suggest that Our Leader is a genuine American psycho. Seems to be a common comparison, partly due to Bush’s total lack of empathy, and partly due to the fact that it’s quite easy to offer up one or another mental illness to describe any harmful behavior. It’s what makes the DSM-IV such a good parlor game.

I want to start a rock band and call it Token Sucker.