Douchebag du jour (VIII and V)

It's that steaming pile Mark Rowan again.

I don't blame you if you're thinking "Who the fuck is that?" He's a nobody but he's been working hard to make a name for himself by being a major douchebag. Let's not disappoint him folks. I may not say it in a paper funded by student (and indirectly, taxpayer) dollars, but I'll write it here. Mark Rowan is a douchebag who deserves, no I'm sorry, who it seems really needs to someday personally experience what genuine suffering feels like.

That life tends to involve pain for all humans is rarely a thing I take solace in, however when it comes to people like Rowan, I find a comfort in knowing someday life will kick him hard. Maybe it won't be until the end, when he's drooling into his hospital jello cup, subject to the numerous degradations of age and illness that a modern "middle class" and better life nearly guarantees as its final reward. But it will come. I sincerely hope that during whatever dark hours life holds in store for this birth defect, he has a moment to ponder the many ways in which his existence has been a waste of human - hell, even mammalian - potential. The boy simply refuses to heave himself up off his scaly belly and stop rolling in his own muck. Someday, I hope that muck drowns him.

For those of you who don't remember Rowan, he's the editor of a campus newspaper in CT, The Recorder. He's the guy who approved and defended a column called "Rape only hurts if you fight it" in February 2007. Shortly after the shit rather publicly hit the fan over that column, Rowan called his decision a "lapse in judgment". His apology for that lapse was pithy, but only in an ironic sort of way.
"We didn't know the campus community as well as we thought we knew, and because of that that's why we're getting this backlash and we're sorry because of it."

Rowan won douchebag du jour (V) here way back in May of this year for being the umpteenth "boy who called witch hunt" when the community The Recorder is funded by tried to hold him accountable for his seriously fucked up take on editing.

This time, Rowan has approved and defended a cartoon published in The Recorder called "Polydongs" which makes a joke about the abduction and torture/assault of a teenage minority female. The Recorder ran this cartoon on September 12th - about a day after the story about Megan Williams' abduction and torture broke.

Below is a description of the cartoon from Take Back the Recorder.

Panel 1: Polydong 1: "You know...when I eat a bowl of smacks or golden crisps, my urine smells like honey."

Panel 2: Polydong 2: "...Does it taste like honey, too?"

Panel 3: Polydong 1 (faded, focus of panel is on a door barred with chains and a padlock): "I dunno. I'd have to ask that 14 year old Latino girl tied up in the closet." (from under the closet door: "!Yo tengo hambre!")

Panel 4: Polydong 2 (in a bubble bath): "Oh. Tell Jaunita I say 'hola.'"

Beneath the panel: "The Recorder does not support the kidnapping of (and subsequent urinating on) children of any age or ethnicity."

Rowan's defense this time:
Rowan noted that he got two comments from Hispanic girls who thought the comic strip was funny.