Free The Boston Two

Apparently the duo arrested in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing case (can't believe I just wrote that) spent an entire press conference ignoring questions and talking about 1970s hairstyles. Good for them. They did nothing wrong and the whole made-for-TV, fear-on-demand situation demands ridicule.

Looking over my post from last night, I maybe did go a little far in the direction of blaming Turner Broadcasting, who actually did nothing wrong either. My point was that responsibility, such that it is, lies at the top. And Turner largely took that responsibility. But that they HAVE TO take any responsibility for putting up Lite Brites with a cartoon character on it in a public space is the height of absurdity. They haven't only lost the ability to laugh in Boston, they lost the war on terror. Because fear grips them so much that art is now a weapon. These devices were in multiple cities for a couple weeks and sparked nothing because they were obviously street art.

I'm with August J. Pollak on this one.

(Boston Mayor Thomas) Menino is going on TV and insisting he's going to send a 27-year old artist to jail for not breaking any law, because his police department overreacted and wasted a million dollars feeding a media frenzy and terrorizing the population of his own city. That's a cowardly act of self-preservation, and were he not threatening the life of an innocent young man it would be laughable.

Let's get a few facts straight on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force sign fiasco:

1. Attorney General Martha Coakley needs to shut up and stop using the word "hoax." There was no hoax. Hoax implies Turner Networks and the ATHF people were trying to defraud or confuse people as to what they were doing. Hoax implies they were trying to make their signs look like bombs. They weren't. They made Lite-Brite signs of a cartoon character giving the finger.

2. It bears repeating again that Turner, and especially Berdovsky, did absolutely nothing illegal. The devices were not bombs. They did not look like bombs. They were all placed in public spaces and caused no obstruction to traffic or commerce. At most, Berdovsky is guilty of littering or illegal flyering.

3. The "devices" were placed in ten cities, and have been there for over two weeks. No other city managed to freak out and commit an entire platoon of police officers to scaring their own city claiming they might be bombs. No other mayor agreed to talk to Fox News with any statement beyond "no comment" when spending the day asking if this was a "terrorist dry run."

4. There is nothing, not a single thing, remotely suggesting that Turner or the guerilla marketing firm they hired intended to cause a public disturbance. Many have claimed the signs were "like saying 'fire' in a crowded theater." Wrong. This was like taping a picture of a fire to the wall of a theater and someone freaked out and called the fire department.

5. The FCC can't pull a private cable network's license, Mayor Hyperbole McFuckwit.

The media and the city of Boston are hurt bad, they're embarrassed, and they need a scapegoat. Someone to push their anger and fear and frustration onto. They found two artists.

Free the Boston Two.