Fern-Fondlers on the Warpath
A weekly newspaper in Mariposa, Calif., The Gazette, was forced to apologize and almost had its contract to print legal notices yanked by the county for accidentally referring to local Democrats as fern-fondlers, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The line showed up at the tail end of a routine item announcing a meeting of the Mariposa Democratic Club. The item ended with a list of phone numbers telling readers where to get more information, but a prankster within the paper added, [b]"or tap any tree-hugging, egg-sucking, fern fondling local liberal on the shoulder, because they know everything there is to know anyway."[/b]
Gazette Publisher R.D. Tucker printed an apology, saying it was "an unfortunate, irresponsible" and "totally inappropriate" mistake. The offending line, he said, was "meant to be a good-natured barb between two employees who have differing political views" and accidentally made it into the paper.