72 year old freeper busted for crude bridge graffiti

[LTR]

When crude graffiti began appearing on highway bridges and roads in Pine County, most people blamed it on teenage vandals.

But this was not kid stuff. The alleged culprit isn't 16. He is 72 and is charged with criminal damage to property; and he thinks he is fighting liberals.

The graffiti -- apparently applied with rollers -- have combined support for the troops in Iraq with bathroom slurs aimed at Democrats. Repairs are estimated to cost $10,000, and, to some residents, the graffiti barrage has seemed like an anonymous assault on their beliefs.

(snip)

The most frequent graffiti have been "SUPPORT R TROOPS." Usually, the slogan has appeared with the S's written backward, leading to comic speculation that the Pine County graffiti artist, leaning over bridge decks, has trouble writing upside down. But at a time when people who question the war keep striving to support the troops, the slogan has seemed like arm-twisting.

Other messages:

"GEORGE W."
"ABORT DUMA-CRAPS"

http://www.startribune.com/357/story/648928.html

[AspenRose]

1. "The Adults Are In Charge" (tm)

yeah, right....

:eyes:

[NoPasaran]

2. If you write an "S" upside down it still looks like an "S"

Most likely he's just an idiot.

[NJCher]

3. caught redhanded

Tsk tsk. Such a clever freeper:

The chief splattering suspect was apprehended on the morning of July 4th, after a sheriff's deputy spotted a pickup with paint cans and rollers in it parked on a bridge above Interstate Hwy. 35 near Willow River. On the side of the bridge, still wet, a fresh graffito said, "SUPPORT R TROOPS."

It had backward S's. And the highway department estimated the cost of repairs at $715.97.

They ought to make the moran clean every bit of it up himself, plus pay the fine AND for the previous graffiti cleanup costs.

And it goes without saying at whose feet we can lay the blame: Newt Gingrich, who took public discourse to such a crude, ignorant level.




Cher

[tanyev]

4. "SUPPORT R TROOPS" "ABORT DUMA-CRAPS"???

They're going to need to publish a Freeper to English dictionary if they want anyone else to understand what they mean.

[NJCher]

5. you gotta' know what the guy's been listening to

with language like that.

Ah, hate communities. Thank the right for bringing people of like minds together. In hate.




Cher

[CatholicEdHead]

6. Both sides hate it

"I talk to people on both sides of the aisle, and nobody likes this stuff," says Marlana Benzie-Lourey, editor and publisher of the Askov American, a weekly newspaper in Pine County. "It's trashy and it doesn't make us look too sophisticated ... put it that way."

Pine County, just north of the Twin Cities, tends to lean red than blue. Though vandalism disgusts both sides.

This guy is a nut but it is a good Nick Coleman article.

[LTR]

7. Coleman writes good stuff

Check out the article there about the Wayzata backlash against Dubya.

[gratuitous]

8. At least both sides say they hate it

I'm guessing that as usual, only one side is telling the truth.

[Darth_Kitten]

9. I hate graffiti........and this guy's a dufus.........

n/t :(

[MidwestTransplant]

10. I think this guy may be a Rush/Hanity/Mann Coulter love child.

I haven't worked out the age issue but I am still pretty sure!

[Vogon_Glory]

12. Maybe Proof of Time Travel?

If the old boy is the result of Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/?? hanky-panky, maybe this is indeed proof of time travel.

I'd favor leniency if the old fool coughed up the whereabouts of the time machine. Think of the possibilities for conservation, even if his time machine could only go as far back as the Pleistocene! While I'm not so thrilled about the idea of re-introducing the sabertooth and the North American lion, I would favor the North American horses and camels.

[mcscajun]

11. "He would not tell me if he is a veteran..."

"It's not as though people around here aren't thinking about the troops," said Benzie- Lourey. One local soldier killed in Iraq was her brother-in-law, Matt Lourey (the son of Becky Lourey, a DFL candidate for governor). Although he was from a family of Democrats, the graffiti assault in Pine County has targeted Democrats.

"ABORT DUMA-CRAPS," many of the messages have said. Benzie-Lourey says people on both sides of the political divide are upset by the messages, which have appeared from Hinckley to Duluth, including all along scenic Hwy. 23, the Veterans Evergreen Memorial.

"Many people have come to me who may not agree with me, but who tell me they care about the pain we felt after Matt's death," she says. "People know you can oppose a government policy and still be patriotic. They want to have a real conversation, not just splatter the highways back and forth."

(snip)

Starcevich may not be the Pine County Splatterer. He is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But he has certainly been caught up in the vicious name-calling that passes for politics these days, when anyone who opposes the bloody war in Iraq is being called a friend of Osama and a supporter of fascism. I can almost understand why someone might take up paint rollers to carry the name-calling to the highways.

[Mad_Dem_X]

13. There you go, solid proof

that old people can be mindless idiots, too. :crazy: