My first reaction was, “Oh great, another overreaction.” But after reading the article, no way. She wore a flashing circuitboard with wires attached to it over a black sweatshirt while she was playing with Play-doh.
At an airport.
She said it was just art and wanted to show it off while picking up a friend.
At an airport.
In Boston, home of the Moonite Light Brites.
Nobody was hurt; she complied with all instructions, and I’m sure the argument will be made that “A real terrorist wouldn’t wear their bomb on the outside like that,” to which I respond, they sure as hell will if nobody ever calls them on it.
Anyway, I’m not pitting the airport security who it seems did everything right. I’m wondering what the flying fuck that woman was thinking. Either she’s dumber than a pile of rocks (which I find hard to believe if she’s at MIT), or she’s trying to be provocative. What the hell is she trying to prove? I honestly don’t know what it is, because if she was trying to make a point, she hasn’t made it yet. But in the name of all that’s holy, get a fucking clue. The Moonite thing was innocent fun; an accidental miscalculation that was blown out of proportion - a little stupid, but innocent. But this doesn’t seem like an innocent mistake to me. We need more information, because maybe she truly is just a damned moron instead of someone who’s got something to prove…I don’t know. Christ, some people.
London was inflicted with a similar ‘artist’ last year. Story here.
How many people need to get shot before the message gets through? The above example was after Jean Charles de Menezes (a complete innocent) was shot dead simply for looking shifty.
Can’t they stick with vomiting ribbons over well known city parks, or does that not give enough press attention now-a-days?
So, I’m doing this new art installation. What it’s going to involve is me running into- I dunno, say- a crowded theater and screaming, “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEEEE! OMG EVERYTHING IS ON FIIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
Mostly, I’ll be showing the implications of the fiscal decisions of the Secretary of the Treasury in Uganda during Operation Desert Storm. Naturally, the message will be tied to this war. . . and the next three.
What do you guys think? I think people are going to LOVE my art and totally get the message.
Amen. I have some very smart friends who are Gates Millennium Scholars and are attending the likes of Stanford and MIT. Very smart, hard working folks that could solve the most complicated of physics problems, but goddamn- they are more often than not TOTALLY lacking common sense. Throw in any type of social situation or attempt to explain social appropriateness and they are totally lost.
As I stated in the othe thread: Going to Logan Airport, the place where Flight 11 and Flight 175 took off on September 11, 2001 and pulling such a stunt is total asshattery.
Let’s not forget, not just ANY airport, but the departure point of the two planes that took out the WTC on September 11, 2001. I don’t blame airport security for their response. It was a particularly stupid decision by the young woman to wear that sweatshirt in any public place, but particularly at Logan.
EDIT- I should have previewed. Sorry Annie-Xmas, you beat me to it.
Me, personally, I’ve never seen a bomb up close. I’d guess that there are other people who have, people who are more qualified to say what does and doesn’t look like a bomb.
Vibrotronica has an excellent point. By strict manufacturers’ regulations, bombs are required to be black and spherical, similar to a bowling ball, with a burning wick. Actual bombers— those who intend to do harm— as opposed to street-level crazies, publicity hounds, artistes, and other mental deficients— are mandated to wear black top hats and grow long, curling waxed moustaches which they must twirl between the thumb and forefinger of their free hand, cackling malevolently just before lobbing the explosive charge at their hapless target(s).
Whenever I intend to fly I bring along a toy gun, which I pull from my pocket and train directly at the TSA agent’s face during the baggage screening. When the little “BANG!” flag pops out, we always have a big laugh over how scared he was!
The thing doesn’t even remotely resemble anything dangerous. If I saw someone walking down the street with it on, I’d think nothing of it - other than that they have bad taste.
You’re right! I’ve seen the light! Just because someone goes to an airport wearing a hoddie with a little LED light on it, they should totally expect to be arrested and get a machine gun shoved in their face. In fact, that’s what they deserve, because this is America! In America, you don’t wear clothes with lights on them! Why? Because 9/11 changed everything! If you wear clothes with LED lights on them, you might as well just join fucking Al Qaeda, because you’re a fucking terrorist! You know all those kids with little light-up LEDs in their shoes? TERRORISTS WITH BOMBS ALL OF THEM! KILL THEM! SHOOT THEM! OH MY GOD THEY’RE SO FUCKING DANGEROUS I MIGHT JUST HAVE A STROKE! WON’T SOME STRONG MAN COME AND SAVE ME FROM THE LEDS?
What pisses me off about this is the totally retarded commentary based on people either reading the first fragmentary reports or only partially reading the news articles. Reading threads like this where people state, without evidence, that the girl was deliberately performing some kind of performace theater make me weep for both the gullibility and literacy of the American public.
a. Please get it through your heads – no matter what happens, the first news reports are going to be wildly inaccurate, if not completely bogus.
b. Second, “hoax” implies an attempt to deceive. Wearing a breadboarded piece of lightup jewelry to an airport is dumb, but it’s a “mistake” on the part of the perceiver, not an intentional “hoax” on the part of the wearer.
Based on current reports (which might still be wrong, but are at least more detailed than the initial news bulletins):
The girl was (stupidly) wearing a piece of home-made jewelry that flashed lights. The security at the airport reacted in a righteously paranoid way (although, to be honest, LEDs in the form of a star are not part of the standard exploding device package). The device was discovered to be harmless. At which point, what * should * have happened was “Sorry miss, but you shouldn’t wear stuff like that in an airport. Do you want to go change your shorts now that the guys with machine guns are gone?” These being perilous times and all, what happened is that the girl got charged with a couple of bogus charges and will probably have to go through a whole bunch of legal crap before she does some community service work.
Still no reasonable explanation for the playdough yet.