by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Citizen Journalist
Missouri has a bit of history with clowns. Legendary circus clown, Emmett Kelly (Senior)
lived in the small community of Houston, Missouri, during his boyhood, and for
two decades that town celebrated with an annual “Emmett Kelly Clown Festival” in honor its
famous former resident.
So it should not come as too much of a surprise that clowns
again made news in the Show Me state this past week. It began when a rodeo clown donned an Obama
mask and walked into the rodeo arena at the Missouri State Fair. A second clown soon joined him and began
playing with the lips on the Obama mask.
But it was a third clown, the rodeo announcer and Superintendent of
Schools in Boonville, Missouri, Mark Ficken, who proved to be the most disgusting
of all.
Superintendent Ficken, who also happens to be the President
of the Missouri Cowboy Rodeo Association, reportedly whipped the crowd into a
near frenzy when he began commenting on the clown in the Obama mask. Some of the comments publicly attributed to
Superintendent Ficken include: “Anybody
like to see Obama run down by a bull?”
“We’re gonna smoke Obama, man,”
“We’re going to stomp Obama now,” and “As soon as the bull comes out,
Obama, don’t you move. He’s gonna
getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha.”
Perry Beam, a fair-goer who witnessed the incident, said
that as the announcer carried on his diatribe, the crowd went “absolutely
nuts.” Mr. Beam said, “They mentioned
the President’s name, I don’t know, 100 times.
It was sickening.” He added, “It
was feeling like some kind of Klan rally you’d see on TV.”
Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri, expressing her outrage
at what occurred, said, “Missouri is better than this, and I expect someone to
be held accountable.”
Radio clown, Rush Limbaugh, himself a Missouri native, waded
into the controversy by observing that President Obama had demeaned the office
of the Presidency by going on the Tonight
Show the previous week, and therefore the incident at the rodeo was understandable. Just another fluke, eh Rush?
To paraphrase Senator McCaskill, America is better than
this.
If Superintendent Mark Ficken made the remarks attributed to him and if he is still employed, citizens in
Boonville, Missouri, need to be finding out why.
1 comment:
Mr. Ficken denies making the inflammatory remarks. Ficken has retained counsel. The school district is conducting an independent investigation.
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