In the Agora: Bombast

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February 03, 2007

Bombast

Long after they've wiped the teary snot from their faces, the city officials of Boston continue to treat Wednesday's incident as a major crime perpetrated on the city. The truth is, the only "hoax" going on here is their persistent attempts to cover up their mistakes, which I've been poking fun at the past few days. Yet we should not overlook the serious aspects of their incompetence, sentiments nicely captured by Doug Masson:

It is a cautionary tale about how we are spending our security dollars. If, after all this time and all this money, we have a security apparatus in place that needs to shut down Boston to determine that a Lite Brite magnet of a cartoon character flipping the bird is not dangerous, we have real problems and our money probably hasn't been well spent.

But, that's sort of the lesser of my concerns. More disturbing, I think, is the media terror porn industry. I'm reminded of Kent Brockman asking a scientist, "Should we panic?" Response: "Yes, yes we should."

Even if one concedes that the signs merited at least a cop poking at them with a stick, given the expected value of it actually turning out to be a bomb, one must, under such a concession, be horrified at the slowness of the response: these things had been up for weeks. What's more, they were ignored in nine other major American cities. If they were a legitimate security concern, then our nationwide security apparatus just demonstrated reprehensible negligence.

And yet who is using this incident to reproach those nine other cities for ignoring them, or Boston for not moving faster? If anyone is, I can't hear them over the laughter.

Posted by Zach Wendling at February 3, 2007 02:39 PM

Comments

Love that poster.

Posted by: Doug at February 3, 2007 04:31 PM | permalink

What were the nine other cities?

Posted by: Dorothy at February 5, 2007 10:55 AM | permalink

What were the nine other cities?

New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

Posted by: Foltz at February 5, 2007 12:23 PM | permalink

The story gets a little more complicated.

It appears that the two guys who got arrested weren't with Interference, the viral marketing firm --- they were just a couple of schnooks who were each paid $300 to put up the signs around Boston.

Their signs were causing an uproar in Boston by around 1pm that Wed afternoon, but Boston authorities claim that they didn't hear from "representatives from the corporation responsible for this advertising campaign" until 4:30 in the afternoon.

Friends of the two guys arrested claim that they notified Interference around 1:30 about the bomb scare panic after seeing news reports on tv. These friends also claim that Interference sent the two guys an email asking them to keep quiet about the campaign.

Placing the litebrite signs may not be the "hoax." Boston seems to be alleging that Interference and the two installers failed to properly notify the authorities that they weren't bombs once the bomb scare was underway.

That's a litebrite cartoon of a different color.

Turner has accepted responsibility and paid Boston a couple of million dollars (I believe that's the correct figure.)

Posted by: JohnS at February 5, 2007 01:26 PM | permalink

February 03, 2007

Bombast

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