For those of you who wonder why — why on earth — the idea of returning to the Fort next spring fills me with dread and woe, look no further than a tiny little story swirling around the city like one of those dust tornadoes you see in urine-scented alleyways. It’s so depressing, from every possible angle, that you just want to smash your head against he wall out of sheer joy.
Yesterday: Democrats’ jokes called crass, caroled the Journal Gazette: Allen County Democratic Party Chairman Randy Schmidt said he will investigate questions of inappropriate content on the party’s Web site, but he said the humor on the site is similar to that of late-night talk shows. The party’s site contains links to sites that sell buttons with slogans such as “Hi, My Name’s Dubya, and I’m an Idiot” and “Ask Me About Bush’s Lobotomy.”
Of course, no story that pokes Democrats with a blunt stick would be complete without a quote from Steve Shine, chairman of the Soviet-style Allen County GOP organization. You have to know Comrade Shine to fully appreciate the way he talks; pompousness is such an ingrained part of his DNA that he makes Rush Limbaugh look like Mother Theresa. Plus, he had a career in radio for a while, and has a deep, resonant AM-radio-guy voice. When it delivers comments like this, it threatens to reduce my molars to powder: Allen County Republican Party Chairman Steve Shine called the content “totally inappropriate” and crass. “I’m rather appalled at the inappropriate sexually oriented comments, which appear to be extremely demeaning to women,” Shine said. “I don’t think that will set well in the City of Churches.”
But you don’t get feel the enormous depressing weight of it all until you actually go to the Democrats’ site, which looks as though it was designed by a blind man with a Geocities account. The only amateurish, annoying, ugly-ass detail it lacks is flashing type, although it has everything else — pointless highlighting, clip art, grammatical errors, the works. It’s no wonder the GOP stays cemented in virtually every county office when this is the best website the other side can come up with, not that theirs is much better, but at least it looks like someone read the manual first.
The second-day story is everything you’d expect: The “crude humor” — which remember, consists of material that displeased the head of the GOP — has been “cleansed” from the site. Huzzah. The world will sleep a little sounder tonight.
Remember: It’s the liberal media. And this is in the Democratic newspaper. I give up.
danno said on October 8, 2003 at 10:21 am
Just one of the many reasons I moved from The Fort!! Some things will never change.
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alex said on October 8, 2003 at 11:11 am
I wrote the local Dems yesterday and urged them not to back down. (I especially liked the joke “Democrats Make Better Lovers–Who Ever Heard of a Piece of Elephant?)
Steve Shine throwing turds like a monkey is certainly newsworthy, but how can the J-G be so stupid they’d miss the story’s proper angle, so obvious to anyone else?
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Dick Walker said on October 8, 2003 at 12:16 pm
Me, I’m an obnoxious, in-their-face Democrat. and a gun-totin’ liberal, so it’s tiresome as hell to watch this smarmy, weaselly cowardice.
But come on: giving a platform to North Korea on the Dem web site? Rummy is NOT a “psychopath on his deathbed.” Far as I know he’s in good physical condition.
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Dan Turkette said on October 8, 2003 at 12:19 pm
�For those of you who wonder why — why on earth — the idea of returning to the Fort next spring fills me with dread and woe, look no further than a tiny little story swirling around the city like one of those dust tornadoes you see in urine-scented alleyways. It’s so depressing, from every possible angle, that you just want to smash your head against he wall out of sheer joy.�
No one�s wondering.. Oh and no, we don�t want you back in the Fort.
�But you don’t get feel the enormous depressing weight of it all until you actually go to the Democrats’ site, which looks as though it was designed by a blind man with a Geocities account. The only amateurish, annoying, ugly-ass detail it lacks is flashing type, although it has everything else — pointless highlighting, clip art, grammatical errors, the works. It’s no wonder the GOP stays cemented in virtually every county office when this is the best website the other side can come up with, not that theirs is much better, but at least it looks like someone read the manual first.�
Hey, we wrote the manual.
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alex said on October 8, 2003 at 12:52 pm
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. As is the word “we” as used in the context above.
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Nance said on October 8, 2003 at 12:56 pm
Naw, he’s probably just the guy from Tek Interactive. They designed the GOP website.
Hey, I said it was better! I even linked to it a couple years ago, when they put up a page of Bean Dinner party photos. It was like Halloween in hell.
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Nance said on October 8, 2003 at 1:00 pm
The other thing that makes this so depressing, though, is the size of the fight. In screenwriting class we discuss the idea of “stakes” a lot — it makes no sense that character A would kill characters B-H over, say, a song copyright. The stakes aren’t high enough.
But I’m starting to wonder, having seen people fight like tigers over stakes embarrassingly low. When are we going to get a Democratic party official who tells Steve Shine where to put his opinions, and does it with wit and style? This is a party website, for heaven’s sake. I mean: WHO CARES?
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Dan from TEK Interactive said on October 8, 2003 at 1:01 pm
I guess I’m a scoundrel then.
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Dan from TEK Interactive said on October 8, 2003 at 1:06 pm
Oh, Alex. You forgot to give credit for that quote: “Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” on the evening of April 7, 1775.”
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alex said on October 8, 2003 at 1:07 pm
No matter where you tell Shinola to put his opinions, and no matter how wittily or stylishly you do it, he’ll still put them in that crappy lapdog of a newspaper known as the Journal Gazette.
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alex said on October 8, 2003 at 1:09 pm
Oh, and Dan–you really shouldn’t rely on google for your knowledge of history. It was none other than Ben Franklin.
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Dan from TEK Interactive said on October 8, 2003 at 1:16 pm
You *are wrong*…
http://www.samueljohnson.com/refuge.html
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alex said on October 8, 2003 at 2:03 pm
Hmmmm….
I’d committed that quote to memory in a freshman j-class at IU back in 1979. The prof was talking about Franklin and spewing all sorts of fabulous quotes, which I jotted down. Another: “She who paints on her face thinks of her tail.” Guess he must have misattributed the scoundrel one.
I remember it so vividly because I ended up getting laid that same afternoon by someone sitting next to me in the lecture.
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danno said on October 8, 2003 at 3:16 pm
alex, you’re such a scoundrel for that last comment!! I don’t doubt you one bit though!! LOL!!
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Paul said on October 8, 2003 at 4:02 pm
Journalism classes at IU are apparently much more exciting than history or poli sci seminars.
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Bozvotros said on October 8, 2003 at 10:27 pm
Is there a bigger hypocritical blowhard than Steve Shine? Your comparison to Rush works on a lot of levels and has a lot of substance…… Know what I mean? Does anyone do investigative journalism anymore?
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mgolden said on October 9, 2003 at 9:10 am
Well, Nance, you’re always welcome in Cal-ee-for-nee-a. Ahnold loves you.
mgolden
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