Conservatives embrace political correctness, stupidity

One of the more profoundly annoying things to come up in recent weeks has been the whole manufactroversy about David Letterman (a comedian) making a joke. If you're not familiar with it, consider yourself lucky.

If you're one of those people and want to maintain your blissful ignorance, please stop reading now.

See, I would have happily avoided writing about this if it weren't for yet another neuron-apoptosing editorial by (unbylined, but presumably) Jeff McMenemy, wittily titled Liberal media slow to scold Letterman for Palin comments.

Okay, let's get this over with...

If you don't believe a double standard exists in much of the mainstream media when it comes to how inappropriate or tasteless comments are treated, just consider the case of late-night talk show host David Letterman.

Letterman, before referring to what he described as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "slutty flight-attendant look," made a truly tasteless and classless joke early last week about the governor's 14-year-old daughter, saying she had been "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during a trip to watch a New York Yankees game.

Wow, lies right off the bat. That didn't take long.

Let's look at the actual joke, delivered as part of a top-10 list about Sarah Palin's trip to New York:

One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

I don't know about you, but when I first heard about that I assumed it was about Bristol Palin, who is Sarah Palin's famously knocked-up daughter. That is, in fact, who the joke was about, according to Letterman.

Clearly, it's also about a baseball player that I know little about, but I guess he's sort of sleazy? Arguably, the joke is more at his expense than Palin's. I wonder why nobody is coming to his defense.

But since Palin was at the game with her 14-year old daughter Willow (a fact that wasn't exactly common knowledge), all the deeply politically correct conservatives decided that Letterman was actually making a joke about statutory rape. Even though he wasn't. But when has the truth ever stood in the way of manufactured outrage?

Anyway, Letterman apologized and made clear his intentions, but Bible Spice was more interested in using her 14-year-old daughter as a political tool (which is totally not unethical) than accepting that it was a joke that went a little wrong and moving on.

So there's the background. It pretty much invalidates McMenemy's entire rant, but let's just check out what he has to say anyway. I'm sure it's enlightening.

Palin called the liberal-leaning Letterman "pathetic," and her husband quite rightly said that "any jokes about raping my 14-year-old are despicable."

Well yeah, that would be despicable. Not really relevant though, since Letterman didn't make any such joke.

McMenemy:

And if you think such a joke is harmless, please take a moment to consider how you would react if someone made a joke about "knocking up" your teenage daughter.

I suppose that would depend. If it was about my very knocked-up 18 year old daughter, I don't think I'd have a whole lot to complain about. But I'm not desperate to keep my name in the news for a 2012 presidential run, so maybe that would change things.

But while other less liberal talk-show hosts, like Don Imus for example, have been summarily fired from their job and attacked by the liberal media when they made tasteless comments, many were slow to respond correctly to Letterman's tasteless joke and basic lack of decency.

Here, McMenemy is whining about not enough people whining. About a joke on a late-night comedy show. Which didn't mean what he has decided it means.

I wonder how quickly McMenemy condemned Bill O'Reilly when he said this:

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

... and then later dismissed it as a "satirical riff."

I bet Pope McMenemy, scourge of tasteless jokes, was right on top of that!

It hurts to go on...

But as slow as much of the mainstream media was to respond to the incident, Letterman was even slower, waiting a full week before he apologized for a "bad joke" that couldn't be defended.

But when he apologized on Monday night, Letterman still insisted he was making the joke about Palin's 18-year-old daughter.

Well, yeah. Of course he was. That's why people laughed (jokes about raping 14 year olds don't get a lot of laughs). That's how it was intended, and that's how it was taken by virtually everyone who heard it. The manufactroversy came later.

Also, it's worth noting that the apology a week after the joke was the second apology. The first came pretty quickly, but I guess Palin wasn't ready to stop exploiting her daughter for political points yet.

We find that claim to be unbelievable, but even if it is true, does that really make things any better?

"Unbelievable" is used in a nonstandard way in this sentence. It doesn't mean something that can't be believed, it means something that McMenemy chooses not to believe. Because he's a dipshit.

Anyway, yes it makes it better! Bristol Palin was knocked up! That's widely-known, and is the reason she goes on tv advocating... ummm... abstinence. Because it worked so well for her!

I'm also pretty sure that 18 is the age of adulthood (and consent, many places) in this country. That makes a huge difference. It's not a joke about a girl having sex, it's a joke about a woman getting knocked up. Even though she actually became pregnant before she was 18. Hmm... Levi has some 'splaining to do!

Enough of the intentionally-misrepresented comedy bits though, let's get to intentionally-misrepresented media response.

The big issue here is not whether Letterman should be fired -- that's up to his advertisers and his viewers -- but why so many in the media think it's OK to cross all lines of decency and verbally attack 14-year-old girls, as long as they're the daughters of Republicans.

Oh, there was still some intentionally-misrepresented comedy bit in there. Oh well.

Regardless, nobody in the media thinks that! Even this joke, which wasn't about a 14 year old, has gotten all kinds of media attention. Far, far more than it should have.

We're glad that Letterman has finally apologized, but we find it troubling that the same liberal pundits who have gleefully attacked conservatives when they make tasteless comments, remained silent after Letterman's comments.

Damn right! Those faggy liberal pundits should recognize the difference between a late-night comedian making a joke that went wrong, and prominent conservative pundits using eliminationist rhetoric that they later dismiss as "satire."

See, when Ann Coulter includes a line like like "I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" in a speech to CPAC, and then follows it up with "You know, ok. I made a few jokes — and they killed 3000 Americans. Fair trade." that's an hilarious joke! Ha ha ha!

But when David Letterman (an actual comedian) makes a joke that right-wingers interpret incorrectly, that's a terrible affront to civility. People should be outraged!

Stupid liberals, don't they know that the only funny jokes are ones that denigrate Muslims or feature some sort of violent rhetoric? Jokes about celebrities having sex are just wrong!

Of course, no McMenemy piece is complete without an appeal to "civility":

And we hope that all political discourse, whether it's a serious political debate or just late-night jokes, will remain civil above all else.

Yay, civility!

Here are McMenemy's allies in the fight for civility. Enjoy.



Now that's funny!

You're invited to Jeff McMenemy's pity party!

Today I rolled out of bed to find that the official Progressive Fitchburg car crash correspondent had sent me a hot tip: Sentinel Editor Jeff McMenemy had an accident and was crying about it in editorial form.

Normally, I'm not inclined to make light of someone's car accident. Car accidents suck, and not even the despicable McMenemy deserves to have one.

But then I read the actual editorial, entitled It's time to get dangerous drivers off the road, and any shred of sympathy I might have had evaporated. It's just that bad.

One trait common to most people who have trouble with the real world is that they put too much importance on their own experiences and actions. Show an astrology buff any of the dozens of well-controlled experiments debunking astrology and they'll claim that it's still valid, because it "works for me."

You get the same thing with car accidents. Some delusional people will see a car accident as a sign that the world is out to get them, when they should probably just take it as a sign that cars + icy roads = trouble.

Anyway, let's start the pity party!

I left work at about 7 p.m. on a Thursday night several weeks ago and headed up South Street in Fitchburg. The temperature had risen above freezing that day for the first time in several days and some of the snow had melted.

But as night fell, the temperatures dropped and even a main road like South Street was starting to get icy.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, there were no Department of Public Works trucks in sight.

Here our protagonist is setting up the story. The tale of a young man who unwisely decides to drives on one of the steepest, curviest, slipperiest roads around on a night it was getting icy, before the DPW had a chance to get to it.

Make sure not to interpret this as a sign he was doing something stupid, though. That would ruin the rest of the story. Just pretend that he's an adventurous type, instead of just a guy who doesn't know how to pick the proper route.

Onward, brave adventurer!

I headed up South Street and as I came to a slight turn in the road, I immediately saw a large black truck already about halfway in my lane.

I tried to get closer to the side of the road to avoid him, but because of the snowbanks and the piles of debris from [Sic] ice storm, I had nowhere to go, and in an instant, he crashed into me.

His truck had turned totally sideways when it crashed into my car.

The impact sent my small Subaru crashing first into a snowbank, and then into a pile of debris, before I stopped.

Oh no! Our hero has encountered a setback! A deadly fire-breathing dragon black truck was out of control in front of him! The roads were too narrow to avoid its devious sideways-driving and a crash ensued!

Since our hero was driving a Subaru (apparently known for being tiny), he was bounced around like some sort of bouncy thing. Did his heroic instincts kick in and allow him to pull the Subaru-beast out of its deadly spin?

In those short moments, I felt like the little silver ball inside a pin-ball [Sic] machine [Note from Unicow: the ball inside a pinball machine is known as a "pinball."] and promised myself I would buy a bigger car if I got out of the wreck uninjured.

I now drive a Ford F-150.

I kept waiting to crash into my windshield, part of which had been crushed when my car crashed into the pile of debris, but I had my seatbelt on and walked away without getting hurt.

Unfortunately, my car was not as lucky.

The impact of the other driver's truck hitting my car crushed the driver's side of the car, smashed part of the windshield, smashed the bumper, both headlights and the front passenger side of the car.

Okay, not so much with the heroic pulling out of the spin. But wearing a seatbelt is very sensible! Not heroic, but at least a good idea.

Predictably, the tiny car was lost. Which is why our hero had to replace it with a needlessly-huge penis surrogate. Or maybe he's planning to quit his editor job and take one in construction? Either way, not that heroic.

Plus, he then spends a few boring paragraphs talking about other cars almost hitting him and how he got out of the car (into the snowbank, people!). Okay, fine, we get it. You were in a car accident.

But now he's out of the car, time to be heroic!

I called one of my reporters so he could call the police for me -- I didn't know the direct number and I knew the newsroom did -- so I could get an officer to respond to the scene.

But because I was not hurt, they told him they were too busy to come to the scene and invited me to fill out a police report in the morning.

Umm... wow. That's not heroic. That's not even competent.

Hey, Jeff, I have information! Try not to forget this: The direct number for the police in this situation is 911.

See, that's the number for emergencies. If you call that number instead of forcing one of your employees to call the number they'd call to get an interview or something, then the police come and actually help you. Try that next time!

Of course, since you weren't injured, it's possible that they'll be off attending to people who have bigger problems. But I'm sure you'll be able to cope without turning into a bawling mess, right?

This isn't going so well anymore, but maybe it picks up?

I continued to wait and look around for the other driver, but he was -- as we used to say -- long gone and hard to find.

And it started to dawn on me that the driver had actually crashed into me and likely totaled my car, and then took off.

Oh no! A hit and run! We could be back into heroic excitement, now! Though the heroism is sort of diminished by the hero apparently being extremely slow to notice the world around him. Still, car accidents are scary, so maybe he was busy pissing himself or something. I'd leave that out of the retelling too.

Onward!

Finally, I saw a police cruiser slowly driving up South Street and I thought he was coming to look for me to file a report, but he instead blocked off the road so a DPW truck could sand it.

Here's a thought: Next time maybe the DPW trucks should start sanding before the accidents happen.

Okay, enough of this hero bullshit. McMenemy has just revealed himself not as a hero, but as a whiny idiot (you knew it was only a matter of time).

Here's a thought: Next time don't drive on slippery unsanded roads, you flaming jackass!

The DPW can't be everywhere at once, and you're the moron that chose to drive on one of the single most hazardous-when-icy streets around, despite it being untreated. If you had waited 15 minutes, or taken another route, maybe you wouldn't have gotten yourself in an accident.

Let the whining continue:

As I was sitting in car [Sic] trying to stay warm and decide what to do next, I started getting angrier at the truck driver who had drove [Sic] into my lane, crashed into my car and then took off.

Umm, do you actually know that he took off? I mean, he was going sideways. On a curve. He probably didn't stop on a dime right after hitting you, so maybe he was in a snowbank around the curve?

Or maybe he did hit-and-run, in which case shame on him! That's a shitty thing to do, but what can you do? Life is shitty sometimes.

Most of us recognize that fact, and try to just deal with whatever shit life throws at us. But most of us don't have editorial columns in which we can cry about how unfair everything is:

What kind of a person drives into another vehicle and takes off?

What kind of a person crashes into a car that is half the size of his vehicle and then isn't even a decent enough human being to stop and see if the other driver is all right?

The hit-and-run wreck literally cost me thousands of dollars because I had just done about $2,000 of work on my car, and I just had to turn around and buy a new one.

Yes, car accidents tend to cost money. Deal with it.

Or, if you're unable to deal with it, maybe you could take your one isolated accident that resulted from driving on an untreated icy road that is treacherous even in a light rain and see it as a sign that everyone but you is a terrible driver.

And if you're really a despicable shitsack of a human being, you can compare your accident in which you were in no way injured to accidents in which people lost their lives. Same thing, right?

The sad fact is that there is an unacceptable level of dangerousness on Massachusetts roads because state officials would rather soak dangerous drivers with high fines and fees, and keep them on the road, than just take their license [Sic] away.

Take the case of Westminster resident Myja Parviainen, who died earlier this year when a Worcester driver speeding the wrong way down Route 495 in Bellingham crashed into her car and killed her.

Then we have a long list of all the shitty things this Waterman guy who killed Parviainen did. To prove that "state officials" hate taking people's licenses away, McMenemy provides the following information:

Waterman lost his license for nearly four months in 2007 after Worcester Police arrested him on charges of driving while intoxicated, according to his driving record.

and ...

The arrest marked Waterman's seventh surchargeable offense in three years, leading to an automatic 60-day license suspension under state law, in addition to his drunken-driving suspension...

Yeah, just look at all those "high fines and fees"! It's terrible! And eventually this horrible driver (who I'm sure totally never got behind the wheel while his license was suspended) killed someone. Which, yes, sucks.

But what does that have to do with McMenemy's stupid little accident in which nobody was hurt? He doesn't even know who was driving the other car. It could have been someone with a spotless driving record who was having a very poorly-timed heart attack for all he knows. Not that it matters when you can just make up your own reality.

Besides Waterman, McMenemy whines for awhile about some other driver who also drove poorly. This is the part of the editorial I like to call the "Jeff is out of ideas and just going to plagiarize some old story from the paper" part. So he does that for awhile, then ends with his coup de grace.

It was only through the grace of God that the driver didn't kill someone when he crashed, and that's apparently what state officials don't understand.

I'm not talking about someone who has a few tickets and got into an accident or two, accidents do happen.

I'm talking about someone with a history of accidents, driving drunk or multiple and excessive speeding.

People like that get way too many chances to stay on the road in Massachusetts, and every day that they get to keep driving, they put all of our lives at risk.

Hear that, state officials? You could have killed Jeff McMenemy! Even though there's no indication that the person who hit him had so much as a parking ticket, we're obviously supposed to think that whoever did it was undoubtedly a repeat offender. Probably an ILLEGAL too (at least that's what some dumbass thinks).

So, what have we learned?

Just a few things:

1. Don't drive on South St. when it's icy (though most of us already knew this).
2. The number for the police is 911 (again, most of us knew this).
3. If your loved one dies in a horrible auto accident, your loss might be fodder for some douchebag who likes driving on icy roads to complain about something stupid.
4. If you see a guy who looks like the lovechild of Joe McCarthy and a kiwi fruit driving a Ford F150, give him a wide berth.

The moral of the story? Jeff McMenemy is a whiny-ass titty baby.

The end.

Oh no! I hurt that publisher's feelings!

Lately I've been less critical of the Sentinel than I once was. For good reason too. Since the new publisher took over, there's just not as much there to be critical of.

So yay for the Sentinel, right? Let's all move on to a happy new day of better newspapers! Let's forget the past crappy publishers and let bygones be bygones!

Or alternately, let's make fun of the hilarious comment the former publisher (or someone cleverly impersonating him) just made on this old post!

Yep, that would be more fun. But doing it on a post from five months ago would be pretty pointless, so I'll bring his long-ass comment to the forefront here, interspersed with my response. Fun!

Mr. Chuck Owen, former publisher of the Sentinel, will have his comments in blockquotes for your protection. I will respond in normal text. Don't get confused! By the way, I'm not going to bother throwing [sic]s in his quotes, because it's such a horrible mess it would probably take me forever. Just pretend there's a big [sic] at the end of the whole thing.

We start our tale with what I assume is a failed attempt at humor regarding my pseudonym. Or he's trying to insult me? Beats me...

Hey Madcow,

You know, I read your comments when you first posted them back a few months ago and I came across them again as I was looking into something on line. Let me offer you something, I am that departed publisher and I still stand by my words from that article. What is interesting is that you were not in the room when I was being interviewed so you wouldn't have a clue about the context of the question.

Yeah, that's not really interesting.

Also, the article was in interview form. Which sort of suggests that the context is right there in the article. Or was there a lot of hand-gesturing and winking that adds context we're not aware of? Maybe it was just edited down from a huge context-filled cornucopia of journalistic brilliance?

Not that it much matters if he stands by those statements anyway...

Oh, I should probably mention what statements we're talking about. The part that I focused on is presented here in full. I will use double-blockquotes so you know it's not something Owen said in his comment, just something he said in the Worcester Business Journal. I'll also bold the part that's particularly of interest/controversy.

What about competition?
Quite frankly there's competitors coming out of the woodwork: the [public access] cable, the [free weekly] Leominster Champions, the Fitchburg Prides of the world. The free newspaper has its niche, and I respect it a great deal, but it doesn't have the news of the day. They can shape it all they want as being flowery and nice news and stuff like that, but you know what, I'll use this analogy: People go to stock car races not so much because they want to watch it go around and around and around. They go to see the car crash. We're reporting on certain pieces of news, news that people may not like, and they may call it negative, but it gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community.

So that's what this hubbub is about, and that sort of car-crash journalism is what Mr. Owen stands behind. Incidentally, that statement by Owen also got the attention of the Publisher of the Fitchburg Pride, who wrote about it (and me, slightly) in an op-ed here.

As you'll find throughout this post, Owen isn't big on sticking to any one topic for more than a couple sentences. He defends himself, then makes weird attacks on me, then goes back to defending himself. I will henceforth assume he has poorly-managed rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and his meds are acting up. Or maybe he just can't form a coherent thought. You decide!

Anyway, let's have an attack now!

Like many people who hide behind blogs, is that your an expert on many things but you probably don't have the character to speak with the person directly or go before a group publicly.

In this quote, Mr. Owen is clearly trying to confuse me by cleverly switching the subject in the middle of a sentence that doesn't make any damn sense in the first place. No dice, Chuck!

Anyway, yeah, I'm pseudonymous. Boo-fucking-hoo. Welcome to the internet.

What does come through pretty clearly in your writings is that your a pretty angry person.

Another blow! He thinks I'm angry! I am indeed! I'm glad my writing conveyed that properly.

Now, here's where things start to get extra-confusing. Taking a break from the attack/defend dichotomy, Chuck starts responding to the various comments on that old post. I won't say a lot, but I do encourage the commenters to stick up for themselves in the comments to this post.

Especially you, Mr. Bartender. He's about to move from praising you to insulting you in no time at all...

The bartender hits the nail on the head when he states some of the primary roles of a newspaper is ad sales and circulation of the paper but, to state it as if that's it's only purpose is wrong. Mr. Bartender, I grew up in the newspaper business and have worked in it from the business side for over 20 years, I have a very solid business perspective of the business. So when it comes to my understanding the role of newspapers, why don't you stick to mixing cocktails and pouring Bud's!!

I think the meds must have worn off halfway through that... And yeah, shame on you Bartender! How dare you express an opinion that actually defends what Owen said! He doesn't approve of that!

Continuing (and finally finishing up the first paragraph of his screed), we abruptly back away from praising/insulting commenters and move back to Chuck's stupid car crash.

The content is important to many who buy it and read it on line. When you look at the Sentinel over seven days, there is a whole lot of good positive things covered and they out weigh the negative. That is what was being discussed.

It's a shame that the thing being discussed didn't appear in that article, then. I was only responding to the article itself. I'm not a mind reader, Mr. Owen!

Anyway, Owen's first paragraph is finally over!

The Sentinel has been recognized by it's fellow papers in Massachusetts and N.E, for some of the articles written over the last couple of years winning awards in their category and newspaper size.

That's super. Unfortunately, a shitty paper winning awards because other shitty papers respect it is not a substitute for being a good paper.

You don't get that from the wind [Ed. Huh?], you get those results from very young reporters who are probably working their first full time gig. They are led by a person who cares greatly about how they do their jobs and is passionate about his work, Jeff McMenemy. You may not like Jeff's views in his editorials, I didn't always but, to my point that it gets people to respond, is important. He continues to work with reduced budgets and staffs like many business have to do today and because the these jobs are handled by new fresh out of college kids their average time at the paper is barely over 2 years on average. Many pursue the next level if they can and move on. It's not perfect, if you want a deeper dive into the human tragedy of not being able to afford an XBOX or any presents at all at Christmas, your fortunate you live where you do, pick up the Globe or the T&G and read the deeper dive into it. They have the resources to commit the attention it rightfully deserves.

I'll translate that semi-coherent rambling for you:

Nobody but kids straight out of school will work for us. Jeff McMenemy threw in all that shit about "liberals" in an hilarious attempt to be controversial. Also, he tries hard with the shitty budgets and stuff, he's just not really competent. Most people we hire leave after 2 years (once they find something anything better). It's okay that the Sentinel sucks because the Globe and T&G are slightly better.

Which just boils down to a lot of excuse-making. You're not automatically allowed to be a crappy paper just because nobody wants to work for you. More likely, nobody wants to work for you because you're such a crappy paper. Have some higher standards!

Also, it's not okay to suck just because other newspapers in the area don't suck as bad. What the hell kind of logic was that?

Anyway, we get a new paragraph now, and it's back to addressing commenters and so forth:

Sorry Rachel, the posting of Unicow didn't have a damn thing to do with me leaving. They were between me and my employer. Before you take up the practice of bashing what I did or didn't do, let me tell you a little. I attended many of the debates in Fitchburg from School committee to Mayor, I met with many of the Rotary members at their luncheons, I meet with many business owners in the area and attended openings. I spoke with Lisa Wong on several occasions and to make certain I was fair in my own approach, I spent an afternoon riding around the city with Councilman Donnelly, learning as much as I could and listened. I met with the Mayor of Leominster and other community leaders in both cities. Doing this while trying to lead a sales team as a market was sliding and tend to other aspects of running a newspaper.

Personally, I never thought what I write had a thing to do with Owen leaving. On the other hand, what firing isn't "between me and my employer"?

Also, bragging about doing the things the publisher of the local paper should probably be expected to do? Awesome! Hell, I've done a bunch of those things too and I'm just a cowardly blogger!

Now is around the time that Chuck Owen, former publisher of the Sentinel, starts to get upset with me. Watch out children!

Don't flatter yourself Madcow, you would reach more people standing on a street corner with a megaphone than reading your ranting blog. The only reason I found it back in January was when I happened to google the Sentinel and my name together.

I'm not really sure how knowing how many hits my site gets and judging that number to be bigger than the number of people I could reach yelling on Main St counts as flattering myself, but whatever. Apparently the only websites that exist to Mr. Owen are those he finds when Googling his own name.

And seriously, should he be saying I'm flattering myself then immediately launch into talking about how he's doing Google vanity searches on his own name? I mean, he could at least throw a couple sentences in between to make the irony less obvious!

Then Chuck's meds kick in and he's back to approaching lucidity again!

Let's be clear on something, sensationalism isn't what I was promoting, it's what people most often respond to in papers and click through on news web sites. People use papers for many things and everybody differs on what they like and dislike. The Sentinel isn't the problem in your area, if you insist that it is, your misguided. Poor economy, poor leadership over a stretch of many years, the electricity provider in the area runs like a monopoly. With Lisa Wong in place and a number of new faces on the city council, your headed in the right direction. Your state reps should be pushing for high speed rail to run out through Fitchburg. Shortening the commute to Boston substantially would drive housing in many of the areas, bring in more money into the communities and would help with traffic.

Okay, I don't have a lot to complain about there (aside from the lie that he wasn't promoting sensationalism, because that's exactly what he was doing).

I assume this was in response to my throwaway comment that included: "I've become convinced at this point that the Sentinel is one of the biggest problems facing Fitchburg in its quest for rejuvenation. It's a cancer on this town."

In retrospect, that was pretty hyperbolic. "Biggest" wasn't the right word. Oh, the S&E is a big problem (less so now than back then), but certainly not the biggest. So you win this round, Chuck! I stand by the paper being a cancer on the town, though.

Sadly, the meds didn't last long, and it's back to Angry Chuck Owen!

To be truthful Madcow, I'm not going to judge you based on your writings, [...]

Well, what a sweet sentiment that is. What a nice guy! Now watch while he does precisely the opposite!

[...] clean up your use of the vulgarities it really shows your age, early twenties? If your older than that, grow up. Oh but wait a minute that would infringe on your first amendment rights? The only place you would get published is on your own blog.

I forget where I asked for writing advice, but obviously I must have. Why else would I get this little lecture from a guy who writes at a fifth-grade level?

Worse yet, a former publisher of a shitty paper in an industry I resoundingly despise says I can't get published! Motherfuck! And all my goddamned swearing makes me seem ten cockwaggling years younger than I am!

And umm... something about growing up infringing my First Amendment rights? Huh? If someone tells me to "grow up" I don't think it's a constitutional issue. It's just a sign that that person is an asshole. An asshole who in this case works in publishing but seems to have a negative view of the First Amendment. Which is a bit creepy.

Now the final bit of Chuck's diatribe.

The part that gets me the most is how judgemental you and some of your fellow bloggers are. Don't let the title fool you, I'm more of a regular guy than anything else. I don't pretend to have all the answers and they more than likely don't align with you. When people ask for an opinion, I'll give it. Every body wants to be liked but I'm a big boy and what you or others like you think really doesn't matter. They usually come from people who don't want to put a face to the words, who don't want to get involved with the process from a public service stand point and generally they just want to complain and bitch about things while feeling they have all the answers but not the stones to try and bring them forward.

Oh no! I'm stoneless! We calls them "balls" in the grown-up world, Chuck. Or is that too vulgar?

Shockingly, it's quite true that I've never done any public service using the name "Unicow." Go figure!

For a guy who doesn't care what I think, that was a hell of a long ranty bitchfest about me expressing what I think.

So what have we learned here?

A summary:

• Chuck Owen writes like a fifth-grader.
• Chuck Owen was a worse publisher than I thought.
• Chuck Owen doesn't like bloggers in general, and me in particular.
• Chuck Owen is sort of a dick.
• We are very lucky the Sentinel got a new publisher.

Yeah, I think that's about it!