Thursday, February 01, 2007
Open letter to the Governor & Attorney General of Massachusetts
Dear Governor Patrick and Attorney General Coakley,
First, let me congratulate both of you on your historic electoral victories.
Second, I must express my concern with the language being used by public officials in response to the “mysterious device” fiasco of January 31, 2007. This is being called a hoax. That is disingenuous. A hoax is a deliberate deception. Cartoon Network and their local marketing agents clearly did not intend to convince the citizens of Boston or any of the other cities in which this campaign has been in place that they were under a terrorist threat. They did not place fake “bombs” all over the city. What they did was place small electronic billboards in places where commuters stuck in traffic would see them and either tell or ask their friends about what they had seen. These billboards featured copyrighted characters that are not only seen on television several times a week but whose likeness can also be found on products for sale all over Boston. While it is true that people were inconvenienced and frightened and much public money was wasted it was the fault not of a cable network nor art students nor a marketing company but of “un-hip” and over-reactive government and public safety agencies. I strongly feel that if as a forty year-old childless male who rarely watches television I have a passing familiarity with these characters someone within the chain of command for yesterday’s public drama must or should have as well. This was a failure of our own government for which artists and cable networks should not be made scapegoats.
Thank you.
First, let me congratulate both of you on your historic electoral victories.
Second, I must express my concern with the language being used by public officials in response to the “mysterious device” fiasco of January 31, 2007. This is being called a hoax. That is disingenuous. A hoax is a deliberate deception. Cartoon Network and their local marketing agents clearly did not intend to convince the citizens of Boston or any of the other cities in which this campaign has been in place that they were under a terrorist threat. They did not place fake “bombs” all over the city. What they did was place small electronic billboards in places where commuters stuck in traffic would see them and either tell or ask their friends about what they had seen. These billboards featured copyrighted characters that are not only seen on television several times a week but whose likeness can also be found on products for sale all over Boston. While it is true that people were inconvenienced and frightened and much public money was wasted it was the fault not of a cable network nor art students nor a marketing company but of “un-hip” and over-reactive government and public safety agencies. I strongly feel that if as a forty year-old childless male who rarely watches television I have a passing familiarity with these characters someone within the chain of command for yesterday’s public drama must or should have as well. This was a failure of our own government for which artists and cable networks should not be made scapegoats.
Thank you.
