Breaking News!

Couple of items from the Are We Retarded? and Where Are Our Priorities? files.

First: The Cartoon Network causes a terror scare. Why is this a prime example of municipal dumassery? A) even if you're not familiar with Aqua Teen Hunger Force (and if you're not, you're already a douche), the device is obviously in the shape of a character giving the finger; since when have terrorists eschewed manifestos and creepy pre-suicide videos in favor images of absurdist cartoon characters flipping the bird? B) Those images were up for weeks before anyone even noticed and they are up in many other cities where they have failed to cause problems; it's pretty fucking lame of Boston to blame someone else for their belated over-reaction and C) they arrested the poor schlubs who were hired by the marketing agency which was hired by the network to implement this campaign of terror. I think if most of us were offered a paying gig from a reputable (and who checks that anyway?) marketing firm to place signs or advertisements for a national cable network, we would assume that what we were doing was legal and had been properly cleared. We would not expect to be arrested and publicly paraded around while the CEO of the marketing firm was "out of the office" and apparently immune to both arrest and pesky reporters. Way to go Boston! Your whole town is now the National Asshole. Fortunately, the 24-hour news cycle has radically sped up the process with which the American public digests incidents like this, so you'll be lucky if you even make it onto Saturday Night Live this week before everyone forgets what the joke's about. And what about the fucking first amendment? Shouldn't this be protected as free speech or something? Probably not, but it's kind of terrifying that one can't express oneself via public litebrite display without running the risk of arrest and national embarrassment at the hands of the Boston PD.
The second story concerns the theft of thousands of dollars worth of wine from a mansion in Silicon Valley. A) stealing wine is kind of genius--it's easy to unload, and if you can't, you can throw one hell of a SuperBowl party. B) Stealing from your rich-bitch (I'm assuming here) employer or client is time-honored passive-resistance of the servant class: power to the plebes! C) Bringing a little crime to the NIMBY, gated-community dwellers who care more about a purloined 50-year-old bottle of Bordeaux than the murder of an 18-year-old one town over isn't altogether a bad thing. It's not exactly social justice, but it does smack the teeniest bit of karma.