(Photo: Instagram/cara_ra_ra)

Perhaps the FDNY should incorporate social media etiquette into its intense training sessions. The department and its well-connected aspirants have been responsible for a rash of racist tweets recently. This time it involves 34-year-old EMS Lieutenant Timothy Dluhos who recently went tirade involving racist, anti-semitic and anti-Asian remarks on his since deleted Twitter account.

The New York Post revealed that Dluhos’ Twitter account was a hotbed for nasty remarks, including one instance where he joked about giving up racial remarks for Lent and then added “Jesus that didn’t [last] long...F-ken chinks cant drive.”

Other tweets from his profile, which apparently included pictures of Hitler in its gallery, featured an image of his toddler wearing sagging pants captioned: “my son thinks he’s one of ‘those people.'"  He also called Mayor Bloomberg "King Heeb” and “King Jew,” so there goes our happy Passover vibe.

When the tabloid approached Mr. Dluhos on Friday, he fell to the ground crying.

“There has got to be a lot worse out there than me,” he insisted.

“My life is ruined. Oh, my God,” Dluhos wailed. “I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Dluhos also told the Post that his stepfather is Jewish so obviously he’s not racist or anti-Semitic. He's just a sensitive guy . . . who wears a jacket with the words "Bad Lieutenant" embroidered on it to work.

“I’ve seen strangers shot and killed. I’ve seen families torn apart by violence. It’s a damn shame that gang members ruin it for hardworking, struggling people,” he cried.

This kind of public bigotry is getting to be something of a pattern. Last week, a FDNY commissioner's son embarked on a Twitter-based racist tirade lambasting Jews, women, President Obama supporters--even dissing Martin Luther King Jr.

In response to our questions about the racist chatter, cofounder Mahbod Moghadam dismissed the notion that this was reflective of the Rap Genius community, telling Betabeat that users can gain entry into "Editor Chats," without being vetted by earning Rap IQ points on the site and that users have used voting rings to game the system in the past. He then blamed hackers for the offensive content, before recanting and saying the parties responsible were merely exploiting a loophole in the system that allowed members to impersonate another user’s name in chat, rather than hacking into the company's code.

He was similarly dismissive of Mr. Crawford's concerns after Mr. Moghadam threatened to kill him in another series of "Editor Chat" instant messages, telling Betabeat, "I’m just messing around."

Critics have expressed concerns about Rap Genius' interloper status in the rap world as well as the Ivy League tone of users who contribute analysis of hip-hop lyrics to the site, not to mention an ill-advised diss video aimed at the rap group Das Racist after one of its members called Rap Genius "white devil sophists."

But the braggadocious Mr. Moghadam is apparently undeterred by the negative responses both to his skills as a rapper and to his at times abrasive public persona. In response to "the haters," he has recorded another diss video and posted to the site. Which haters, exactly, is he referring to, we asked? Mr. Crawford and "90s bloggers," Mr. Moghadam explained.

At this point, we find ourselves at a loss for words save for a genuine sense of awe that a $15 million investment does not a muzzle make. Rap Genius members, however, have already begun to annotate his lyrics on the site. Because of course.

Mr. Kutcher

Prolific tech investor Ashton Kutcher made a major flub in his new advertising campaign for Pop Chips out today, although you wouldn't know it by reading the industry press. Thankfully, Anil Dash was there to call it like he sees it, as Mr. Dash is wont to do. In the campaign, Mr. Kutcher, who was named Pop Chips "president of pop culture" in 2010, plays four different characters in a series of spots made to look like dating videos. For the Indian character named Raj, Mr. Kutcher is painted up in brownface and speaks in a caricature of an Indian accent.

"Don't watch it," Mr. Dash writes in a blogpost condemning the ad. "It's a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he's doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That's it, there's seriously no other gag."

via The New York Times

Don't see the harm in it? Here, let Mr. Dash break it down for you.

"I can't imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad "funny" accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course. Make some different decisions."

Shortly after Mr. Dash published his screed, the YouTube video for the commercial became private, as did the videos of the other characters. Earlier, Stuart Elliot of the New York Times described the characters as such, "Darl, a diva; Nigel, a hippie; Raj, an optimist who is Indian; and Swordfish, a sweet biker." Apparently, the Darl spot was clueless as well.

Mr. Kutcher, who has been happily tweeting out links to the spots, has yet to delete any of the tweets or respond to criticism of the campaign. But making the video private is ironic, because one of Mr. Dash's many suggestions for how Pop Chips could be better is by not pulling the ad down and offering an explanation about how the process failed instead. You can check out the rest of his advice for a company that finds itself in the middle of a very public faux pas on his blog.

In the meantime, Betabeat is starting to wonder if there's a "Real Talk with Anil Dash" web series in the works that nobody told us about.