dan.brakeley.net

Last week, after the Boston Invasion, when I said I thought Turner was doing a wonderful thing? Well, they basically paid $2 million for a BUTT LOAD of free publicity, in addition to it being the best way to defuse the situation. But the two guys arrested for placing the devices are still facing criminal proceedings. That’s really goddamn stupid, the corporation pays it’s way out of responsibility, but the starving artists are still facing charges. Hopefully the case will resolve itself intelligently and with respect to the stupidity of Boston’s reaction.

Ding, Dong, The Witch has five counts of professional misconduct which could end with him getting disbarred. And then we don’t have to read about him and his obnoxious crusade anymore. Although it was funny when he tried to get Bully banned just because it was Rockstar who made it (a judge then actually VIEWED the game and it’s contents, and told Thompson to shove it). But what’s not funny is his incessant fear mongering and his desire to blame a single institution for horrific atrocities committed by troubled kids. Violence didn’t start with Pac Man.

Just a quick update, yesterday two guys were arrested and brought before a judge to plead on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. After they made their plea, they were advised not to discuss the case with the press, so they didn’t. And when the press wanted a conference with lots of questions that they couldn’t answer, they changed the topic. For some reason, Fox considered this news, and aired it.

However, this morning on NPR I heard some good news, which is that people are now starting to talk less about these two guys (given the response the other cities who were targeted, I think it’s clear these guys are not at fault), and instead focus about the generation divide: kids think the older folks overreacted to what was obviously not a terror threat, and the old people are shaking their fist in the air. Twenty-somethings, in general, knew this wasn’t a threat, while the people in authority (generally more middle aged?) called in the bomb squad. Not that a generational divide is really news (when hasn’t there been a generational divide?), but it’s definitely the cause of the panic, and is what should be discussed, instead of two guys hired to put up advertising.

Regardless, Turner is handling things brilliantly, by offering to pay for the costs of the scare (link, link). That’s the noble thing to do, and probably the best way to diffuse the situation. I personally think the city just needs to chalk this one up to experience, but if Turner is willing to ease tensions with a generous donation, then no one should get in their way.

Also, I like how Turner itself is accepting responsibility directly, and taking action to address the problems they created, however unintentionally. I of course would hope our government leaders could learn to do the same.

A guerilla ad campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force scattered electronically lit pictures of the mooninites around Boston. Boston finally noticed them yesterday. And totally freaked out.

This is so goddamn stupid. Of the ten cities in which these things were installed, only Boston decided to birth a cow over it.

They’ve arrested the guy who was hired to install these, whose name is Peter Berdovsky. This is so fucking stupid.

Here’s info on Berdovsky.
Here’s his web page, zebbler.com. Click on Past Events to see the installation.

And here’s the goddamn bomb sqad removing them:

If anything happens to this Berdovsky guy, I’m going to be so disappointed with this city. I can understand the need to keep this level of response over a harmless ad campaign from happening again, but that can easily be done with some legislation. How about this: pass a law requiring registration of electronic art that is to be installed on bridges or in subway tunnels. Done. Lesson learned. I cannot see making an example out of this guy as anything but misplaced anger. This is a simple misunderstanding that got blown way out of proportion. Maybe if the authorities had just released a picture of the device in question earlier, I’m sure someone could have easily pointed them to the appropriate web page and the whole thing could have been resolved much easier.

Arrg.