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“Utah” Blaine apology.
In bold: “The Geneva Shore Report apologizes to city administrator Blaine Oborn because of inferences that might be assumed when the nickname ‘Utah Blaine’ in The Geneva Shore Report.”

As it turns out, and as has been told to him in person by the GSR senior editor, no one on the paper’s staff had any idea that Blaine Oborn was a Mormon. The publication does not make fun of anyone’s religious beliefs. Outside of poking fun at the Lutheran Church for constructing a building that looks more like a prison warden’s home than a church or that the metal roof might have been put on it to guard against lightening bolts sent down from God, the GSR holds religious beliefs as invulnerable to criticism. Freedom of religion in an American institution and is as huge a deal as freedom of speech. The GSR will fight for both if called upon, or if violations are observed.

Utah Blaine.  Louis L’amour, the most famous western author to ever live, published a book by the title Utah Blaine many years ago. Here is a synopsis written about the novel:

“When Utah Blaine rescues Joe Neal from being lynched by a pack of land-grabbing vigilantes, Joe hires Utah has his ranch foreman. Aided at first by only a fellow gunslinger, Utah gradually rallies the townsman to his cause for a climatic showdown with Russ Nevers, his murderous henchman Rink Witter and their pack of range-wolves.”

Utah Blaine Louis L'Amour Lake Geneva

 

That Utah Blaine, as described in the novel, is the kind of western good guy the Geneva Shore Report had hoped (and still hopes) Blaine Oborn might become for the City of Lake Geneva. As stated in that issue, where Blaine first appeared as “Utah,” the last thing Lake Geneva needs is either somebody who knows nothing about running a small city or someone so jaded by running small cities that a man like Lake Geneva’s former city administrator becomes the result. Lake Geneva needs a gunfighter. Whether that gunfighter is going to be a Paladin, Marshal Dillon or one of those not so nice characters from the movie The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is yet to be determined.

I’ve got the vapors…and the clouds forming those vapors continue to billow. At what point is Lake Geneva going to make it difficult for such shops to do business in Lake Geneva? Everyone has to make a living and businesses must make a profit, or at least break even. Nobody can argue with that kind of pure capitalistic logic.

But what’s next for Lake Geneva?

Will Tom Hartz, currently ‘under contract’ with the existing pawnbroker owners, turn the old deadVape Shops Lake Geneva theater into a living success as a porn show house? Not likely, but if the current logic of not caring what kind of shops open in downtown Lake Geneva is held to then what is to prevent it? Head shops should not be welcome. Time Share sales, where the timeshares are rip-offs were and are not welcome. Guys making believe they are veterans running American Legion Hot Dog Stands are not welcome.

Is it only a small feisty newspaper that can stand against these organizations and people? If standing alone is required (although Mike Kocourek stood right with the GSR when it was his time with respect to the Vape Shop), then that is the way it shall be, but it should not have to be that way. There is still a “vapor” shop located in downtown Lake Geneva. What is Lake Geneva going to do about it to help gently it down the road?

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