MAO ZEDONG WAS BORN 125 YEARS AGO TODAY: Of course, as an earnest member of the Instateam, I should try to be fair and balanced in my evaluation of the late Chinese leader. So let me give you both the pros and the cons:

First the CONs:

1. Tens of millions of deaths can be attributed to his murderous regime. Really … tens of millions … from the executions of counter-revolutionaries in the period directly after the regime’s acquisition of power to the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution. Whether one credits the high estimates or the low ones, it was human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale.
2. Mao’s personal physician reports that Mao never bathed or even washed his face or hands. He never brushed his teeth, which were covered in a green patina. And his breath … yikes.
3. According to that same physician, Mao, green teeth and all, was a horny goat who took hundreds of young women to his bed over the years. And he apparently gave a number of these women a nasty dose of trichomoniasis. When offered antibiotics to cure him and hence prevent him from infecting more women, he declined, since he himself (like many men) was symptomless.  Trichomoniasis was their problem.

And now the PROs:

1. He is said to have had a talent for calligraphy.

I will let you draw your own conclusions.