The Boston Terror Scare

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past week, you probably know about the recent “terror scare” in Boston on Wednesday. For those who don’t, you can find the story summarized below, and on countless reputable websites on the Internet. The Wand of Wonder, a blog to which I contribute frequently, has a bunch of posts offering opinions, as does my friend’s blog. Here’s mine.

To summarize, on Wednesday, January 31st, Boston police responded to reports of suspicious packages left in odd places throughout the city. The packages appeared to be blinking, and naturally bombs were one of the first things that came to mind. Police bomb squads investigated the packages. After the city of Boston was brought to a near-standstill for most of Wednesday afternoon as bridges and roads were closed fearing a possible terrorist attack, the packages were found to be advertisments for a popular Cartoon Network show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The “ads” were made from a Lite-Brite.

(As an aside, I love ATHF. I think it’s one of the funniest cartoons in a long time, and I recommend it. That being said, I continue with my analysis.)

Eventually, the parent company of Cartoon Network, Turner Broadcasting, Inc., issued a statement explaining what the mysterious packages were: part of a “guerilla marketing” campaign designed to place advertisements in unexpected places. After this announcement, and after upwards of $750,000.00 and God knows how many man-hours were expended, the terrorism threat level in Boston returned to normal.

Here’s the thing. Boston isn’t the only city that has these ads. In fact, they’ve been up in New York City, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle and Portland for a couple of weeks. Apparently, no one in those cities mistook these ads for bombs. Bully for them.

But back to Boston. Two men were arrested and charged with “planting a hoax device,” which may lead to five years in prison for each of them. They’re currently out on bail. The Mayor of Boston and the Attorney General are raising hell about ATHF, saying it should be taken off the air, and about Turner Broadcasting, saying the company’s actions are irresponsible in a post 9/11 world. They claim that at the very least Turner should foot the bill for the cost of the massive police response that shut down parts of Boston on Wednesday. (Turner broadcasting has issued a statement today saying they will reimburse Boston for all costs incurred as a result of their advertising.) Other people think it’s kind of funny. They think that the Boston police are idiots for mistaking a Lite-Brite for a bomb, and that the response was way overblown, and that it’s a cartoon, for fuck’s sake.

As someone who drives to Boston almost every day, and as Boston and the surrounding towns are home to people I care very deeply for, allow me to tell you what I think.

This was a colossally dumb marketing idea. Further, whoever’s idea it was to place these ads where they were placed is a complete moron. One of the packages was placed in Sullivan Square near Interstate 93, which is the central traffic artery through the city. I-93 suffers from gridlock for at least 10 hours a day on a normal day. (Sullivan Square, incidentally, is smack in the middle of where someone I care about works, and had this occurred on the 30th, instead of the 31st, it would have really fucked with my lunch plans.) Reports of these packages suspended from bridges closed the Charles River to all traffic and shut down Storrow Drive for a while, which, for those who don’t know Boston well, is a pretty major street along the waterfront (ditto on the gridlock situation). When these roads get closed or delayed, the result is FUBAR. If either of these ads had been bombs, as was feared, the damage could have been extensive. Oh yeah: one was placed near New England Medical Center, too.

The short version: all are pretty likely locations for terrorists to target.

Turner Broadcasting is doing the right thing. They know their marketing idea was dumb, and although they couldn’t have predicted the level of shit it would stir up, they’ve assumed responsibility and apologized, and are trying to make amends and restitution for the economic damage to the city.

Now listen up, because the Angry Piper is not in the habit of defending the police very often. But thank God for the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police, who demonstrated a commendable level of readiness to a perceived threat to the city. They acted swiftly and efficiently to contain and assess the situation. Had it actually been a terrorist threat, the B.P.D. seemed ready and able to deal with it. The B.P.D. is not made up of idiots because they can’t recognize a cartoon character ad and dismiss it when it’s, say, hanging from the underside of a bridge on a main artery through the city. It’s not supposed to be there. It’s suspicious. And since the city had no idea about this planned “guerilla marketing” campaign (neither did the other cities, so far as I know), they felt it bore investigation.

I say again, Bravo to the Boston Police Department. They did the right thing.

As this story developed throughout the day yesterday, I considered what should happen as a result of this incident. I thought (and still think) that Turner should foot the bill for the cost of the response effort and publicly apologize. I thought (and still think) that the B.P.D. should be applauded and commended on doing a great job. I thought (and still think) that taking ATHF off the air is a ridiculous and stupid overreaction to an unfortunate event that inconvenienced and frightened a lot of people. And, lastly, I thought that the two fellows in question were likely misguided fans who deserved no more than a stiff fine and/or community service, as clearly there was no terrorist intent to their actions. I figured these two guys were likely shitting in their pants at the thought that something they figured was harmless shut down an entire fucking city for an afternoon, and that they could be going to jail for it.

Notice I didn’t say I still think that. Because now we come to the two people in this entire situation who did the wrong thing, and are still doing the wrong thing: the two clowns who actually hung the ads.

In their arraignment hearing, they appeared “amused” when the prosecutor informed the judge the ads were made from a Lite-Brite. They have been advised by their lawyers not to talk about the case, but, when questioned by reporters, rather than say “No comment”, one said they would only talk about haircuts from the 1970’s. The other asked reporters, “Anyone wanna talk about hair?”

Perhaps their lawyers should have simply told them not to talk, period. These guys are fucking idiots. They’re facing a five-year prison term and have the entire city of Boston pissed at them. The company that hired them has publicly apologized and is paying close to a million bucks to reimburse the city, and they’re cracking wise. Good luck staying out of prison, douchebags. Enjoy your five years of forced anal sex.

Back in 1938, Orson Welles caused a national panic and mass hysteria with his CBS radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. Now, we can and do laugh at the thought. How silly were those gullible folks back then to believe a Martian invasion could be happening! But you know what? I’m betting it wasn’t so funny at the time. At least Welles didn’t think so; he publicly apologized the next day.

Maybe in a few years we can look back on this and smile, but right now it’s not funny. As someone who was in Boston on Wednesday, I can certainly tell you the mood was anything but jovial.