Creepy Clowns Abounding!

By James Donahue

All it takes is a few characters dressed like clowns running around a residential neighborhood and frightening people, and we have a growing epidemic.

This appears to be what has happened since a few "creepy clowns" began appearing in Bakersfield, California earlier this month. Once it hit the national news, the idea began to catch on.

The Bakersfield clowns, which allegedly began as a husband and wife project as a promotion for a photo studio, also were appearing in Wasco and Delano, California. People said they just appeared on the streets in the night, some wielding machetes or baseball bats. They never hurt anybody, just walked up to people’s front doors, strolled through neighborhoods, and got photographed.

Bakersfield police nabbed one 14-year-old boy dressed as a clown who was reportedly scaring people. He told the cops he got the idea while reading a news story and wanted to participate in the hoax.

Now those pesky creepy clowns are starting to show up all over the nation. They have been spotted and video-taped in Florida, Indiana and New Mexico, to name a few places.

And lets face it, suddenly and unexpectedly encountering a clown on a dark street, brandishing a weapon, is something we don’t easily forget. In fact, such an encounter is very likely to scare the hell out of a person.

While we expect clowns to show up in circuses, parades, carnivals and birthday parties, they aren’t something we see every day. And lets face it, most of the clown outfits are designed to scare. People have a natural phobia about encountering clowns.

We have been posting pictures of clown faces on this website regularly to depict our disgust at the way the politicians have been behaving in Washington. Not many of the clown faces are happy ones. So far, we doubt if we have posted many duplications. There is a real art form involved in creating a clown face, and we have found some of the best. And scariest.

Why has the creepy clown appearance gained such a national following? It was a good idea, and the youth of America apparently feel a lot like we do about what has been going on in Washington. They are venting their frustration in various ways, including occupy movements, protest marches, and now, creepy clown appearances.

May they inspire us to do something better at the polls this Halloween and election season. It would be nice to think of our elected national leaders as something better than a room full of clowns and apes.