We knew it was coming - we just didn't know when, or where, or why. But sure enough, with the inevitability of WMDs being found in the White House basement, the Portland Press Herald has editorialized in defense of the military-industrial-governmental complex whose entire job is to bring fear into our lives.
What did they say, you ask? Read the editorial
here. That sort of breathless fear-mongering has been going on in Boston for days now, and even the Boston Globe (whose overall response was alarmist at best) took a moment to notice that it exposed a huge
generation gap in America - though they also erred in describing it as an age-related thing.
The real gap is between the people who know what's happening in the world and the ones who can't bother to lift their heads out of the sand to find out.
The Press Herald has obviously lost the plot. And, specifically, they've missed the point. These devices were up in eight cities around America for as long as two weeks. (Some of them were lifted onto bridges and buildings, fully lit, in the middle of the night.) And nobody in charge raised the alarm.
Which leads to two possible conclusions:
1. Officials in cities other than Boston are actually aware of popular culture, and don't consider it a threat. (This would be nice, wouldn't it?)
2. All those billions we're spending on homeland security might as well be buying lottery tickets for all the protection they're offering us. (Hey, at least lottery proceeds go to help fund schools.) I mean, does anyone think that when terrorists decide to attack, they will put brightly colored lights on the outsides of boxes, placed in plain view?
Lots more along this line is on this site, courtesy of our friends in Boston:
Here's the
timeline of what happened.
Here's a prominent free-speech lawyer's defense of
artists, who did nothing wrong.
Here is some more description of how authorities
miss the point and obscure the real issue.
There's also
a bunch on the Phlog, but if you're overwhelmed, just don't miss
the video in this post, showing how the dastardly terror-causing visual artists clandestinely hid their subversive message in dark corners of Boston.