TBS pays $2 million for Boston police's inability to determine that cartoon images were not a threat.
Am I the only one wondering why a sophisticated police department, with all the public spending on readiness, were unable to quickly ascertain that there was no threat from a bunch of blinking light bulbs?
Seriously, should a real diversionary tactic be used during a terror attack, perspicacity is paramount in avoiding lost time and focusing on the real threats.
LAST WEEK, THERE was a successful ... attack in Boston. The perpetrators were Turner Broadcasting and the Cartoon Network, and they succeeded in hijacking something that every American holds dear: our attention. For a moment, Scooter and Baghdad and Mary Cheney's pregnancy were shoved aside by a talking milk shake, fries, and meatball.
There's nothing at all complicated about the desperate ideology that hatched this plan, dispersed 38 LED devices across the city, and splattered "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" across our cultural windshield. It's an ideology fueled by a fear of irrelevancy. As jaded consumers grow resistant to conventional messages and techniques, marketing becomes terrorism by other means.
The theory is simple. If a commercial message is "ambient" -- meaning, in the industry jargon, that it's expressed through an unexpected medium in an unexpected place, say a device stuck on an overpass -- it's more likely to sneak past our mental screening devices and warning systems.
Boston's mayor first estimated the cost to the city at more than half a million dollars; a few days later, the attorney general's office said the prank took the entire state for $1 million. How do they come up with these figures?
