Schmuck Alert: Dumb and Dumber

I guess the news crews had it coming. After all, they had the audacity to knock on the door of a Longview, Washington union hall and offer coverage of an ongoing dispute. They were roughly rebuffed. And that's when those jackals from the Fourth Estate stepped over the line. They pointed their cameras at an official note posted on the union hall door. It was more than one schmuck could bear. In a flash, a seething figure wrapped in shrunken flannel burst from the building and in one fell swoop, lowered all the boats in the harbor. "I say, good man, won't you refrain from videotaping our premises?" he did NOT say. Instead, this bellicose nutbag put on a performance that proved not all stereotypes are wrong, lashing out at the reporters and photographers with enough guttural language to make a drill instructor blush.

It seemed it wouldn't end as the longshoreman bounced from one camera to the next, grabbing lenses, threatening everyone and setting back his cause a hundred years. Really now, sir. Wouldn't your stance be better served by reasoned discourse, or even the unimaginative 'No Comment' - rather than the homoerotic comeuppance you slung all over that parking lot? Down South, we call that 'showing your ass' and we generally discourage it unless blood has been shed (or a pitcher of sweet tea has been spilled).  Rarely do we endorse the kind of infantile vulgarity that seems to be your strong suit, if only because it convinces people their prejudices are correct. Didn't you notice the photogs were having a ball? Throbbing veins and flying spittle are a challenge to shoot, but when you back it up with a vocal performance like that, it is a pleasure to bleep and disseminate. Something to think about as your and your pals crack open another Meister Brau, or whatever cut-rate beer you guys drink for breakfast.

Schmuck!

Oh, and if that wasn't enough moronic showboating for you, a clip has surfaced of an EMS official accosting a WNBC photojournalist. " I told you to stop!" the medical technician yells, mistaking his dangling walkie-talkie for the Sword of Grayskull. The photog appears as perplexed as we the audience, but that's a natural expression when an otherwise mild-mannered first responder tries to wrestle your livelihood from your grip. Hey, you don't see us media types snatching stethoscopes from the necks of unsuspecting medics, do you? Do you? Hyperbole aside, I'm most troubled by this last clip, as we news shooters have great respect for emergency medical technicians and work hard to stay out of their way. I mean, we expect longshoremen to go ape-shit when the big words start to fly, but an EMT? Must be more to that story and we here at the Lenslinger Institute are anxious to hear it. Meanwhile we can only judge the evidence before us and lump Mr. Medic in with that flannel-clad oaf with the limited vocabulary.

SCHMUCKS! 



UPDATE! Proving there is some justice in this world, the bellicose longshoreman featured above has been arrested on four felony charges: burglary in the first degree, assault in the second degree, intimidating a witness, and sabotage. 'A witness had alerted police that he recognized (Ronald) Stavas after seeing video on KGW-TV of an angry man who confronted a news crew at the Longshoremen union hall.' We here at the Lenslinger Institute sincerely hope he encounters some form of unwanted sodomy during his time in the, ahem, pokey. Schmuck.