The Kool-Aid Man is Comin' Aroun'

“To me death is not a fearful thing. It's living that's cursed.” ~Jim Jones
"Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours ... Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein ... Chairman Mao." ~Willie Brown speaking of Jim Jones

I'm sure we all know by now that they drank Flavor-Aid at Jonestown, but Kool-Aid rolls off the tongue easier & there is no "Flavor-Aid Man", just some weird uncharismatic straw character. Charles Manson seems like the street version of Jim Jones, the homocidal street preacher with serpent-like hypnotic powers over the weak-minded. Manson & Jones are great jumping points into larger pictures & there's a fantastic series of connections to make from Manson to the Beach Boys & Scientology or the Process Church or Jones to Harvey Milk, George Moscone & other San Francisco liberal politicos. It's fun to think about these guys like Russian nesting dolls, you could put Manson (a baker's dozen killed) into Jim Jones, Jim Jones (900 cultists killed) into Hitler, Hitler (12 million Europeans) into Stalin (6-30 million Russians depending on who you listen to) & Stalin into Mao (50-70 million Chinese killed). Yet, Manson's face is the scariest of all these guys.