Cartoonists are not terrorists - the overblown reaction to the Mooninites
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I don’t think anything could better exemplify the post-9/11 hysteria that still exists better than Boston’s reaction to an ill-conceived marketing campaign. And I say ill-conceived simply because the perpetrators underestimated how paranoid and hysterical the reaction could be to a Lite Bright Of Unknown Origin (or LBOUO).
Needless to say, I don’t think that anyone who phoned this in deserves a pat on the back. They deserve a bucket of ice water over their heads. Calm down people. There were several other cities that were part of this marketing campaign, and not a single other city reacted by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on SWAT teams and law enforcement.
Now some might say that we’re better safe than sorry. But I think there are limits on just how safe you can be before you’re truly sorry. Do you lock yourself away in your house and throw away the key? Do we lock up anyone who looks at us funny just because we think they might someday commit an act of terrorism? Of course not. No, you go on with your life and try to live it as normally as possible. And you learn the difference between a potential threat and a light kit that gives you the finger.
Right now the two guys who created the campaign are in jail, although I can’t imagine on what charges other than vandalism, which I seriously doubt carries the kind of punishment the city of Boston would love to impose for being made to look ridiculous. I fully expect t-shirts pleading for their freedom within days.