GEORGE BUSH HAS ALWAYS LIKED TORTURE

On November 8, 1967 the NY Times recounted a Yale Daily News report that five fraternities had been accused of "sadistic and obscene" initiations. The paper said that Delta Kappa Epsilon had used a "hot branding iron" on the backs of new members and quoted a former Delta president, Georg Bush, then a senior, that the resulting wound was "only a cigarette burn."

This was not Bush's first bout with sadism. According to an article by Nicholas D. Kristof in Midland Life, "'We are terrible to animals,' recalled [Bush childhood pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. `Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Throckmorton said. `Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'"

Psychologists don't think young men blowing up animals is such a good sign, as this report from Science News notes:

"Psychologist Paul J. Frick of the University of New Orleans recalls a boy who was recently referred to the mental health clinic where Frick works. The 10-year-old had trapped a cat and killed it by slowly slicing it with a knife. The youngster calmly explained to Frick that he wanted to see how much he could cut the animal before it died. 'He wasn't upset by the incident at all," Frick says. "He was a bit annoyed about being brought to me, though.'

"The boy might be a future surgeon, but it's more likely that he's headed for psychopathic pursuits, in Frick's view. The child's callousness and lack of emotion, seen in a small proportion of children and teenagers, probably foreshadow serious behavior problems, and perhaps even a psychopathic personality, in adulthood. In such children, Frick finds a lack of guilt, an unemotional demeanor, little concern about others' feelings or about school, a refusal to keep promises, and difficulty forming lasting friendships."