Hey Kids, It's S-A-R-I-N Time!

From the "utterly disturbing" files, my friend James passed on this article from Newsfilter by Major Robert D. Walk, on the Mickey Mouse gas mask for children, which looks for all in the world like a piece of very bizarre fetishwear:

On January 7th, 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, T.W. Smith, Jr., the owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and his designer, Dietrich Rempel, with Walt Disney’s approval introduced a protective mask for children. This design of the Mickey Mouse Gas Mask for children was presented to Major General William N. Porter, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. After approval of the CWS, Sun Rubber Products Company produced sample masks for review. Other comic book character designs were to follow, depending on the success of the Mickey Mouse mask. The mask was designed so children would carry it and wear it as part of a game. This would reduce the fear associated with wearing a gas mask and hopefully, improve their wear time and, hence, survivability.

"Hey kids, don't worry about all those fighter planes flying overhead and those bloated corpses of our dead neighbors in our back yard. Let's play a Mickey Mouse game!" Maybe I'm just being morbid, but if you can't laugh at the situation you may just go crazy.

Iraq: T-minus 24 hours and counting. Do you know where your duct tape is?

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