Blarg's Beefs

So Comedy Central hires some riff-raff to put up "trendy" advertisements for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Boston freaks out and thinks that they are bombs. They shut down traffic, bring in the bomb squad, etc. etc. Now Turner Broadcasting, the company that owns Comedy Central, apologizes and will probably have to reimburse Boston for the costs that were incurred.

There are two problems though. First is that these things simply look like Lite Brites. They might be suspicious, but I don't see how people would have gotten that worked up about them. And second is that in all the other cities that these things were put up in, nobody else got freaked out! There were no bomb scare threats called in New York or Los Angeles. So what do we make of Boston's reaction?

Some would point to the fact that Boston's Logan airport is where three of the four airlines used in 9/11 took off from. That's certainly true, but what people forget is that those planes TOOK OFF from Boston. They didn't ATTACK Boston. Boston is not a terrorist target. The reason Bostonians got all freaked out is because they don't recognize this simple fact.

Once upon a time, many centuries ago, Boston was a very important US city. The Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, and all that jazz. A central part of the American Revolution. Unfortunately, time has passed Boston by. The city of Boston is only the 20th largest city in the United States. That's right, 20th. Cities that are more populated? How about Columbus, Ohio (15th). Or Memphis, Tennessee (18th). According to 2005 estimates, El Paso, Texas has surpassed Boston (the estimates have Boston slipping to 24th as of 2005). Aside from producing two of the least memorable presidential candidates of the past few decades (Dukakis and Kerry), Boston and the state of Massachussetts in general has simply not been that important in the overall scheme of the United States. That's why the terrorists didn't bother to fly any of those jets into Boston landmarks ... Boston is no longer a symbol of America, for better or worse.

But having lived in Boston for four years, I can tell you that this fact has not yet sunk in with the people of Boston. To them, they are still the intellectual and political capital of the United States. The high concentration of old money and well-respected colleges in the area has led to a distorted sense of self-importance that does not reflect the region's actual place in the United States.

Thus, when mysterious blinking things get posted onto bridges and public buildings, they overreact and assume that they are being attacked. Nevermind that the place that did, in fact, get attacked (NY) didn't freak out and overreact.

That's not to say that blinking lights placed on public buildings shouldn't be a cause for concern. The ad campaign was quite irresponsible and not very well-thought-out. The police should have approached them with caution, figured out what they were, and then removed them, without a doubt. However, it really wasn't necessary for all the streets to be shut down and the bomb squad to be called in and hysteria to be raised.