Comments on: 1-31-2007 Never Forget!

By: Ben Holt

Ben Holt — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:58:59 +0000

Charles: the sponsors of the various art forms have nothing to do with it. The Boston PD were particularly twitchy and, I believe, overly keen to arrest and formally charge people. It doesn’t matter if the LED cartoon characters or the silly girl with the LEDs and wiring and play-doh were art or advertising or both or whatever. If the signs were considered suspicious, someone who should be able to reasonably evaluate them should respond and have a good ol’ look-see; there was no need to haul in the guys who put them up on any charges more serious than maybe littering. Likewise, I also don’t think Simpson should have ultimately been charged with anything beyond “get a clue” once it was clear that she meant no harm, she was just foolish. Before that was established, however, “wrestling to the ground” was a perfectly reasonable response. Again, my complaint is the need for such authority figures to validate themselves by trying to make every move they make result in an arrest for a litany of throw-a-lot-of-charges-at-’em-and-see-what-sticks. Alas the system favors that sort of overly-serious over-reaction, which is what makes public ridicule for such silliness so valuable.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:30:45 +0000

This LED is something like a robot. Its our technology which made this to happen.

[ED: Some jackass spammer left this. Links deleted. Comment remains because I found it stupid-funny.]

By: bbum

bbum — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:52:15 +0000

Huh?

Showing up at an airport with random electronics strapped to you while picking up a friend isn’t art.

It is a cry for attention. And stupid.

It was stupid pre-9/11, stupid last century and stupid now, regardless of how broken the security theater implementations are at airports.

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:36:21 +0000

So, freedom of expression is for advertising agencies, not eccentric art students. Yay America!

By: bjh

bjh — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:09:28 +0000

Nobody’s saying “don’t bother reporting or responding to unknown or suspicious packages”, in fact the whole point is that every situation requires evaluation and a REASONABLE response. Sometimes that means “realize that it’s just an LED sign as dozens of other cities worked out without needing to make an example of anyone” and sometimes that means “taking down the nutter at the airport with the circuitry and putty and whatnot”. Sometimes you make a bad call. When you make a particularly bad call, you should be mocked for it. When you make a spectacularly bad call and detonate a traffic counter as an encore, well, you get the special honor of serving to remind us all to THINK before jerking our knees out from under ourselves — until you are dethroned by someone who better reminds us of how foolish we can be, of course…

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:58:45 +0000

Please don’t forget October 28th, 1991 either. I am sure that members of the BPD bomb squad didn’t as they were responding to the call of suspicious package on the RT93 overpass and the other suspicious package at the New England memorial Hospital and the unidentified object on the Longfellow bridge.

By: John C. Randolph

John C. Randolph — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:29:02 +0000

Hmm.. I remember the story about the girl at the airport. I don’t think I remember hearing that she was carrying a wad of paydoh. I guess that would make them rather more jumpy.

-jcr

By: bbum

bbum — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:13:50 +0000

@Charles — Now *that* is a subject that I haven’t touched upon.

The MIT student who showed up at an airport w/LEDs embedded in her shirt was… catastrophically stupid. I don’t care about political climate or anything else, that was just completely dumb. “Time of terrorism” be damned, it was just… stupid. I can’t think of a better word for it.

That she showed up with the LED / battery “art” installation and 5+ ounces of playdoh in her hand moves it from “dumb” to “desperate cry for attention.”

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:35:05 +0000

By all means, we should make internet cult heroes out of a promotional campaign for a cable TV network’s cartoon show, and not, for example, a young MIT student who went to an airport wearign a T-shirt with LEDs on it, and was wrestled to the ground with machine guns pointed at her head.

/sarcasm

If I never hear of the goddam mooninites again, it will be too soon.

By: bbum

bbum — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:52:11 +0000

Christ. You people take this far too seriously. It is a FRACKING JOKE.

It was a fracking LED CARTOON CHARACTER and the entire thing was a comedy.

If anything, it is indicative of how incredibly stupid and out of control the various authority figures are.

To say this is Kennedy’s fault or Bush’s fault is a demonstration of your willful ignorance in the name of partisan politics.

Bush’s contribution was merely to attempt to do whatever the hell he wanted– laws, traditions, constitution, and norms be damned– under the guise of protecting the population from the terrorist boogeyman. He gave us a common label for authoritarian stupidity; 9/11, terrorism, 9/11, fear, 9/11, terrorists, etc…

Notice the emphasis on “potential”? Probably not. Your minds are too clouded by preconception to notice, probably.

Potential for sanity. Not realization of same. No guarantees. Merely potential.

Potential that we have not had for a long long time.

One more bullshit partisan comment and I’m going to take the last word and close the comments.

This is, after all, a joke.