Lily-white Lake Crystal, Minn., 12 miles from Mankato, has about 2,600 people and one ignoramus who owns and edits its newspaper, the Tribune, which has no website.
It's tough sometimes to fill the space in his Just Rambling column, Don Marben explained in September after his "joke" under the heading "Golf" made the news statewide. He said he found the joke on the Internet.
The setup was that a golf course replaced its caddies with robots only to find that their shiny surfaces caused glare for the golfers, who suggested painting them black.
"We did," a course employee responds, "and four of 'em didn't show up for work, two filed for welfare, one robbed the pro shop and the other thinks he's the president."
Marben wouldn't go on camera with a FOX 9 reporter from Minneapolis but, as relayed by the reporter, said: "He's sorry if he ruffled any feathers, stepped on any toes." (Story and video here.) Some townspeople did speak up. Some defended Marben, others found it inappropriate. One doofus compared it to an Ole and Lena joke.
As disgusting as the joke is, many of the 552 comments on the apparently unmoderated FOX site are much, much worse. I stopped after the first comment page of 56.
I'd hazard an educated guess that a good share of the racist commenters are tea party supporters. Of course they would deny it.