Can I ask you all something?...Kinda serious and a tad personal, in search of your best insights.

Most of you, by now, have probably heard about this:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/22/student_causes_scare_at_logan_with_shirt_art/

An MIT student walked into Logan International Airport yesterday morning wearing a glowing device with wires coming out of it, prompting a bomb scare and her arrest at gunpoint.

...which reminded me of this:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020807R.shtml

The now-infamous Lite-Brite Bomb Fiasco of 2007 that unspooled here last week didn't make me feel old either, so much as it made me feel out of touch, for the first time, with those who are ten or fifteen years younger than me. The gulf between my feelings and thoughts that day, and the feelings and thoughts of the twenty-somethings I talked to about it afterward, could not have been wider. Not to put too fine a point on it, that whole thing scared the almighty cheese out of me. The reports started coming in around noon - "suspicious items" that had "wires" and "electronics," which were found strapped to critical infrastructure all over the city, according to the news media - and for a few hours, I entertained the possibility that my darkest fears were becoming a reality.

...and a little bit ago, I clicked a thread here in GD in which the OP was astonished and disgused because the MIT student from the first story above very nearly got shot to death for wearing her art into Logan airport.

I heard about this story first thing this morning, and have been stewing over it all day...all the while reminded of the Lite Brite fiasco (and please skim that second link, as I wrote it about that incident, and about my feelings during and after).

So I saw the thread, and I kinda-sorta detonated:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1879495&mesg_id=1879965

NOTE: I am *not* calling out the OP or anyone else with this.

But there's been a lot of talk here lately about many DUers exhibiting authoritarian tendencies, and I guess that above is me exhibiting the ass off those tendencies.

But I don't think I'm wrong. I hate it...but the country we're in right now is batshit-crazy, and we must fight to correct it, but I can't see the logic in pursuing that fight (or even living a basic life) pretending things aren't how they are.

Read all those links, if you feel like it, and let me know what you think.

And thanks. This is personal to me, because it keeps happening in my town. Sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt.

And neither flashing lights and wires placed on critical infrastructure, nor airline passengers wearing similar types of "art" are cool.

At most airports, that means she shouldn't have gone through the security checkpoint, or entered the gate area. "Only ticketed passengers beyond the security checkpoint" is the norm.

The problem with declaring certain areas "sensitive" is that inevitably the border creeps outwards, to include accessways to the "sensitive area", then approaches to the accessways, etc. Before you know it, you'll risk being machine-gunned on the highway.

Remember the guy who was arrested for riding his bike out of the Minneapolis (IIRC) airport (there were no rules against this, but he got arrested anyway)? When the definition of "suspicious behavior" is allowed to expand without limits, soon everything is suspicious.

us. Besides the student with the lightup printed circuit board, there was the case of the authorities confiscating a kid's juice cup that was deemed to be dangerous. These, and other cases, appear to be blown out of proportion.

On the other hand, I remember reading articles over the past few years where the FBI or other security groups successfully smuggled weapons and "real" fake bombs past security personnel at airports while testing them out.

These types of incidents (the printed circuit board and the juice cup) appear to serve two purposes simultaneously. First, it gets people to believe that airport security is effective, when the facts would suggest otherwise. Second, it rattles the public into being suspicious of everyone, so that they will go along with expanded police powers.

It seems to me that a person who was a real security threat would make some effort to hide their intentions by concealing any dangerous device or weapon. This Keystone Kops mentality should make people feel less secure.

Have you ever seen the documentary "A Thin Blue Line"? It made clear the cops wanted a conviction of a cop-killer, and they wanted it in a hurry, so people would know justice was swift and sure, at least for cop-killers. Only they didn't really care if they convicted the right guy -- the warning was equally effective, no matter who actually went to jail. Very Stalinesque.

Anyone who can't tell a bomb from that just. . .fails.
She should have thought about the ignorance of the people though.

My point.

Women wear burqas and chadors so men won't see them. If I have to check myself every time I pick up someone at the airport, or go to the store, or a museum, or a walk in public to make sure the Fear Ridden Mongers won't worry about me, back to burqas and chadors. Blame the victim. EVERYTHING can be suspicious. I won't support that.

I don't support dogs that attack me, either. But if I'm near one, and it hasn't been trained out of the habit of violence, I'm going to walk carefully.

If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.

If we had an informed population, we could have an informed democracy, if we had a democracy.

*sigh*

or face the consequences.

And that's a police state with everyone worried about if they are doing something acceptable or not. That isn't what this country is supposed to be about. But that is just how the powers that be want us to feel. Keep us scared and worried about doing the right thing.

And... I'm so sick of the phrase "Post 9/11". 9/11 could have been prevented and it had nothing to do with airport security, it had to do with intelligence.

And if protecting the public sounds authoritarian, so be it.

I think it's absurd that her initial detention is being seen by some as an outrage. Of course it's the way we live now, and one can deplore it, but one can't deny it. Furthermore, I believe that even before 9/11 she would have been detained and questioned.

I don't think she should be prosecuted however.

I don't think your reaction is unreasonable. I pretty much agree with it.

There is a huge difference between an explosive device and a circuit board with a couple of LEDs on it. A cursory examination of the device should show it for what it is, and every fucking cop should know what they're looking at. They are the ones blowing these incidents out of proportion, and the terror-shill fucking media is running with it. In both of the above incidents, these harmless devices were called "fake bombs," which is both horseshit and as irresponsible (and should be as actionable) as yelling "bomb" in an airport (which is essentially what happened in the latter case). Cops should fucking know better, and there's no good excuse for them not knowing better.

But again, I'm stuck on the fact that it is what it is, and we haven't fixed it yet...and as someone who has done a buttload of air travel since 9/11, I can't begin to fathom the mind-set that decides to do anything clever in an airport.

Question: if an art student walked into a Tel Aviv pizza shop with some circuit-thing strapped to her waist...or, 20 years ago, if an art student walked into a London pub in the same fashion...given the respective realities in those cities, would it be surprising to see a serious reaction, or surprising if there was no reaction at all?

response would have been low key, perhaps one pcconstable questioning the student and doublechecking that the dvice was indeed harmless. The most questionable thing about her actions IMO was the playdough she was carrying.

...three to seven muzzles also trained on her from many directions, triggers half-squeezed, and maybe also a sniper rifle's red dot over her heart as well.

I think yes. We aren't there yet...but we're in the postal district.

London is quite edgy after the Underground bombing.

i don't think we can assume that cops will sit back and not respond when they think an armed terrorist is strolling on his or her merry way, be it london, be it boston, be it anywhere

A serious reaction would be officials taking charge of the situation quickly and efficiently, assessing it for what it is, then restoring normality, once no danger is established, in such a way that it inspires confidence and a feeling of security in everyone around. What has happened in each of these incidents is wholly unacceptable panic, which actually makes a safe situation dangerous. Cops are trained to do the former, not the latter.

I don't fault the average Joe (or Will) for freaking out when the first reports of something like this come out from somewhere within their stomping grounds. However, what the fuck are these "authorities" being paid for if they're compounding the problems they're supposed to be solving?

When I tried to go to London twenty years ago, they took my passport, detained me for over 30 minutes, took everything out of my suitcases, and tested my shoes for plastic explosives. Why the caution and suspicion? Because I am a red head. That's it.

She went up to the info desk to inquire about the flight's arrival. The info desk people asked her what it was, but she walked away.

The info desk called the police to report it.

So here's what the police know. A woman wearing some sort of crude device with protruding wires on her person walked away from the information desk when asked what the device was. The police have to get up close to make the determination that the device is benign.

Police response was well executed and appropriate. That said, I also think the DA is overreacting by throwing bomb hoax charges at her.

...she wouldn't have been arrested, and there would be no charges against her for the DA to be overreacting with. All they had to do was quickly pull her to the side and ascertain the nature of the device, then let her go on her way. Did she resist or something? I never got past the irrational panic in the reports to the specifics of the case.

Have you ever seen Disney security in action at one of their parks? I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't even if you've been there a lot, because they are masters of not spooking the herd. I was indirectly involved in a Grad Night incident where, due to some idiot jocks from another school thinking it would be funny to derail the boat they were in, I was trapped listening to the bagpipe loop of It's A Small World for nearly twenty minutes, the scars of which are another story. Anyway, once a technician in waders got their boat back on its track and we were finally able to finish the ride and get off, Disney security had those boys out of the boat and through a concealed door before the people in the boat behind us even knew what was going on. The point of this tangent is that there are ways to handle these situations that minimize panic and overreaction, and that obviously didn't happen here. Maybe the Boston PD need to go train at Disney World for a season.

I have seen Disney's system. I was giving CPR to a man for about 90 seconds and before I knew it a guy popped out of the ground. BUt that has nothing to do with this case.

The police responded to reports of a woman with a suspicious looking device afixed to her clothing. They're not gonna pop out of a hatch in the ground and whisk her away. They are going approach her slowly and deliberately, issuing verbal commands for them to remain still, hands out. Once that person is cooperative, they can detain them to inspect the device, and verify there is no threat.

Only the DA's office would bring bomb hoax charges. Cops don't want all that trouble.

I think they're well-marked and possibly color-coded.

Anyway, even if the police response was as you say, wouldn't that take virtually no time at all? There are duty cops on the premises, right? And, assuming she was cooperative with them, how long would it take them to ascertain that it's just a stupid lightboard, especially given that they've already had a lightboard panic in Boston? I mean, do these guys have to send cigars to a lab to determine if they're dynamite or not?

I appreciate cops for the work they do (because there's no fucking way I'd ever do it myself), and I'm not trying to make their job more difficult. But they are supposed to control the situation, and in both of these cases, panic has ensued. Yes, it's the fault of the DA and the whoreporate press for blowing it out of proportion, but I have a hard time believing Boston PD hasn't given them something to overreact to, and I'm just saying they need to work on that. And maybe install a bunch of trapdoors in the airport.

Of course, the press loves to use headlines like MIT Student Triggers Bomb Scare, or Panic at Logan cause they are attention grabbing whores and no longer journalists. Nothing keeps you tuned to the news like the prospect of seeing hundreds of air travelers running and diving behind roadside barriers. But then, other than the headlines, panic and scare are never mentioned again. No one running for cover, no one injured in a surge toward cover. Nothing. Just typical sensationalism to sell papers.

I love you :pals:

...but, hell, a few minutes on the internet is all it takes to tell the difference between a lightboard and a blasting cap. These people are required to be literate, aren't they?

devices, and posted as such.

I mean, what does it take? Ten minutes on Google? Anyway, I couldn't be sure which of my assertions, if not all of them, they were not taking my word for, as if it were conjecture.

to spend an hour with a search engine of your choice. We cannot adequately protect ourselves from any threat without knowledge. We can sit here and tell you about the components of explosive devises (which I've tried, in detail, several times today), but in the end if you really want to know and be able to make your own judgments down the road, all you can do is learn about it yourself.

Clearly better training is needed. Having said that, it's still stupid to wear batteries and wires attached to a breadboard to the airport.

A matter that I firmly believe in and have experience with first-hand.

I respect the police...I have family and friends that are cops, but I don't for one minute believe that they are, for the most part, properly screened for their jobs, nor are they properly trained in a matter that is equally sufficient to the responsibility that they shoulder on a daily basis... I will briefly explain the point I am trying to make; if anyone has any questions or disagreements, please say so.

6 months of training in NOT enough to be given a gun, an opportunity to kill and this degree of authority...I know that many police departments have standards that say that their candidates have to have 60 college credits before they join; but this is NOT sufficient in my humble and experienced opinion...some random classes at the local comm. college do not qualify anyone to have this responsibility. To be given this level of authority I believe deeply that the persons charged with this duty should have MUCH more education and undergo MUCH more scrutiny and training to achieve their privelege than they currently are...not to mention the fact that they deserve to be paid much more handomsely than they are now.

People; six months of full-time police academy training is not nearly sufficient...I realize that that is the norm, and breaking the norm takes time, but for crying out loud we depend on these people to make split second, sometimes life saving decisions, with nothing more than a crash course in law, self-defense, firearms training and subduing perceived criminals to protect us against potentially huge terrorist threats.

I qualify my informed opinion because I was a paramedic for 7 years in a larger city. I know a lot of cops and some of my good friends are and were cops...for the most part they are great people and I mean them know dis-respect.

What do you think?

On a side note...this woman was totally out of line by wering such a thing to an airport.

...who knows what in the hell they are doing can beat any amount of classroom training. But, yeah, it's unfair and dangerous to everyone involved as is. There are just some things that corners should never be cut on because the price of doing so is always greater.

And, while I don't necessarily think the woman was wrong for wearing a homemade electronic light decoration to a post-9/11 airport, it definitely falls into the category of "What in the fuck were you thinking, lady?"

edit:brite*lite* boards...


major cities down and a college student almost gets shot because she has a circuit boat board and a battery *in plain sight* is absurd. But I've noticed a tendency among anyone wearing a uniform in the last five years or so to be much more asuthoritarian than in the past, even if they're a bus driver or a toll collector,ya know? It's almost as if there's something in the water.

Witch hunt.

This is exactly the same sort of hysteria, except this time we're looking for anything with WIRES or BLINKY LIGHTS instead of women who have congress with the devil. Human nature never changes. Only the manifestations change.

wires and blinky lights, as you put it, can be real dangers that really kill people. "Congress with the devil"?

Not so much.

Witchcraft was JUST as feared as "circuit boards" and blinky lights, and just as hysterically paranoid a fear. They THOUGHT it could harm them. Really. They FEARED it was everywhere, and only constant vigilance could keep them safe.

Do you believe a bomb can? You are totally missing the boat. It is so not the same thing.

...are any threat to me or anyone else. But folks once THOUGHT witchcraft was an immediate and terrible threat, and they created whole institutions and legal contexts to deal with it, just as we are doing with the DHS. Fear of witches was irrational and led to hysteria. Nowadays people are reacting to completely innocuous pieces of circuitry as though they were an immediate and terrible threat. It's still irrational and still hysterical.

Both pose/d about the same danger and both are/were exploited to manipulate the masses.

Damn, I better turn this fucking TV off before it kills me.

I mean, she went to the Information Desk as was speaking English, right? Is there some reason that people can't fucking talk to each other anymore?

Calling police was a tad quick.

BOOM.

Like it, hate it, but these security people are not trained to be either inquisitive or magnanimous.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not saying otherwise.

I'm saying "touch hot stove with finger" = "burned finger."

It just seems like jumping into a shark tank with a pork chop tied around your neck.

Some things are dumb on spec.

Know the ground you're on. Sun Tsu said something about that...or was it Pickett?

Because she broke up with her boyfriend.

Or what about when a middle eastern guy who was trying to rush to say goodbye to his daughter and gets shot in the head?

Are you gonna say he was stupid? You may be right but it will still be a tragedy.

We build the societies we live in. It is not enough to say "This is the world we live in" and leave it at that. We affect people with our opinions. When we choose to fight somethning and when we choose to give in, we are setting an example for others.

I hope that you would choose to say that you do not want a world where an innocuous-looking hand-made lite-up thingie wouldn't cause such a big problem.

Now, as to her saying nothing when asked, I know nothing about it. I need to hear more reliable details. Sounds weird.

the reaction someone who's sweaty or nervous or rushed gets from airport security to the reaction someone with a circuit board, wire and a battery is going to get. They deal with sweaty, rushed, nervous people all the time. I've yet to hear of a case where one of them had guns pointed at them.

Wait til they have the cameras that read people's emotional states.

Training security at airports for signs of excessive nervousness, training them on "clues", eye twitches, and on books. Bah.

I mean, only a fool with a death wish would show up at an AIRPORT when they're feeling nervous or upset. Everyone knows that the scanners, the HSA agents and the dogs are all trained to pick up on "signs" that terrorists are planning something.

The signs on the airport doors and the loudspeaker announcer warn you very clearly to "maintain a calm demeanor at all times or you may be subject to arrest or, unless all lawful orders are carried out immediately, to be subdued with deadly force."

How about if my partner tells me he wants a divorce while driving me to the airport? It is too much. Oh, sarcasm. Got it. Indeed. Only a fool with a death wish would show up at an airport museum park store bridge while nervous or upset because after all, all those places are TARGETS OMG!!!!!!1


sigh

my reaction was that the 'security' people were correct to "alert" on it and she should have had he sense to expect that.

But then i thought charging her with intentionally perpetating a hoax was overkill - way, way overkill. that response sounds a bit like she was goading them. terminally stupid!

I still think the charges are excessive, but maybe she does deserve a wrist-slap after all.

They don't give a flying F about who is doing what, or who thinks their message is profound and cosmic -- they are given a set of red flags to look for and obviously a moron with wires and whatever strapped to her body, did the trick.

This girl at logan airport had her head up her ass (post 9-11-- MIT? WTF? Knock -- knock? Is there anyone home? )

Does anyone recall those old SNL episodes where a racist white man wore a helmet and then yelled racial insults while traveling in an African American neighborhood -- I think this woman had the same type of mindset!

Stupid-- IMO

police to deal with situations like this? "Ma'am, that thing you have that kind of looks like a bomb, is it a real explosive?" Her- " No " Them- " ok, carry on"

Moronic

They did what they should have done and she's lucky she didn't look like she was moving to detonate because they could have shot her right there.

You can get arrested and charged with a crime for joking about a bomb in an airport, been that way since before 911. Doesn't matter if the odds are that no one who is going to bomb the place wouldn't joke about it- You don't do it.

She placed the officers, in their view, in a life or death situation. If they have to get close and inspect it, how do they know that wasn't her intention, just to take out a couple fascist security people?

I had no earthly idea what a breadboard was before yesterday.

And resent DU'ers calling others stupid for not recognizing a breadboard.

I'm University educated (double major) and constantly seek out new topics to learn about.

Electronic circuits are not one of them.

Am I stupid for not knowing what a breadboard is or looks like?

Who knows what a dibbler is? A muddler? I've got both and they both could be construed as weapons.

I make art out of found objects, but I didn't recognize that contraption as art.

Not being a fearful person the 1st thing I thought of might very well still be "bomb".

And to expect police and airport personnel to know, when the woman was asked what it was she did not answer!

simple distinction, one that anyone in a position of authority should definitely know. It's just so frustrating to see people call this thing something that it is so blatantly NOT. I've done my fair share of calling out ignorance today, I won't lie about that.

This is something that people are fighting about while they have no knowledge about it, and furthermore, refuse to gain such knowledge about it.

I don't think any less of DU'ers for not knowing this (despite my screaming/tearing my hair out), but if they're going to argue about it, I think it's important that they make an attempt to learn about it. I've posted a few detailed posts about why the entire ordeal is completely overblown, but it's down to the point where it's just overwhelmingly frustrating.

In this day and age, if you're worried about bombs, the best defense is to know the engineering behind them. I did it just because I like chemistry and electronics (And I'm not even THAT smart, or old for that matter)

http://tangentsoft.net/elec/breadboard.html



And I am not electronically literate.

Bombs can be made to look like anything.

I think you're right.

I do.

I do NOT mean my perspective, though, to be a personal judgment of you or anyone else.

but I don't think it's applicable to this case, and also, there have been real incidents over the last few years: London and Madrid come to mind.

,...and deaths on the freeway?

Statistically, I'll die from a thunderbolt several times over before I die from a "terrorist" act.

Moreover, I saw the young woman's shirt. I would have been more compelled to approach her and ask her if she is sick of the fear-driven bullshit than I would EVER have been compelled to run-n-hide.

I just think that,...well,...like I said, the fear-inciting propaganda is working and creating an over-reactive, irrational, emotive society (more)easily manipulated by those who seek to maintain control over us.

Just my personal perspective. Just MHO.

Bali, Istanbul, London, Madrid and more. Sorry, that's not a few, let alone very few. Yes, it's more likely that you'll die in a car acciden. And I'm not suggeting that people should buy into the fear fesival, but reason should tell anyone that wearing anything with wires, a circuit board and a battery to an airport is a piss poor idea. It has nothing to do with propaganda and everything to do with common sense.

How many people die from cancer in this country? How many people die from diabetes, heart disease, hell, even suicides?

Take those numbers and do a comparison test. Keep it simple. Take the number of people who have died from a lightning strike over the last ten years and compare it the number of people who have died from terrorist acts. OR Take the number of people who have died in a car accident in the U.S. and compare that to the number of people who died from a terrorist act. OR Take the number of people who have died from AIDs around the world and compare that to the number of people who died from terrorist acts.

I believe the "witchcraft" analogy to the fear-inciting propaganda over "terrorism" is spot on. Both are EXAGGERATED DANGERS utilized to manipulate the masses into doing things those masses would otherwise find repugnant.

Perspective.

But, hey,...you are entitled to choose your world perspective and I am entitled to my own, and we are both entitled to defend our respective perspectives. We will likely never convince one another to adopt the other. But, that's okay.

And I don't think "authoritarian tendencies" are accurate in describing the views of someone who thinks the woman should have had more sense or that it's understandable that police would be alarmed.

Andrew Meyers, on the other hand, did not appear to pose a threat (at least in my opinion). But he did freak some people out because (again IMO) I think we've become so passive a nation that many of us are threatened by impassioned speech and ideas.

As Jon Stewart said, it was a combination of cop over-reaction and student douche-baggery.

Sorry for the term. It seems apt.

if everybody who talked too much and too long got tasered it would be a pretty silent world

the mit student wasn't making a political point, she was shouting "fire" in a crowded theater and there does need to be some price for that, although probation might be better than the 5 years of prison (unless and until she is proved to be working with someone else to test airport security response, which i'm inclined to think is rather more likely than not -- mit students aren't generally THAT stoopit)

....at a Real Policeman, is it?

I mean, if this girl is so oblivious to the expectations for airport visitors, then this was just exactly the wake-up call she needed to help her smell the coffee.

It was what I call a "Lifeshock." Life was trying to tell her to Wake Up! Get a Clue!! You should NOT wear anything with WIRES on it at an AIRPORT!!!

vanlassie

i don't believe the shirt was art, and i would expect a full investigation of this student and her contacts -- someone was testing airport security response and i certainly hope that the fbi is quietly looking further into this and not taking the silly "art" story at face value -- her background/contacts need investigation

if she really is this stupid, then she can go to prison for the hoax and will get a lot less time than if they find out she was getting paid by someone else to do this and is serving as an accessory to terror

she's an mit student, and most of them are not total moronic fucktards, i think we need to be real that there is a lot more to this than we've been told

these probing little tests of the response time of the boston area law enforcement is not cute nor is it funny, it's sinister if you ask me -- or it should be regarded as such until proven otherwise

when someone keeps probing the security response of an area, you need to check deeper

report I read - so seems it was NOT a case of her "testing airport security response", as you asserted.

your response on bigtree's thread was truly disappointing, surprising and disheartening. You're evidently not who I thought you were. I'll be looking at your postings in a rather different light from now on.

I'm not sure what to say. Here's the work I did to cover it:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22william+rivers+pitt%22+kerry+ohio

I met many of the Kerry-hired ballot watchers assigned to Ohio. They saw what they saw (see above), but before their bus/train/plane/car/donkey trip back to Boston was done, before they were able to report what they saw as per their assigned role, the campaign left the field.

It is what it is. Take me as you will, and I'm sorry to disappoint (I guess). But I was in the middle of all that, and I believe what I believe.

In a case that was far more obvious.

Nobody would have backed Kerry up. Well, maybe about 3000. That's how many we got in DC for the "Million Voter March" for an election that was OBVIOUSLY stolen.

3000 people. Yeah, that's a movement. Yeah, that would change who sat in the White House.

I'm not going to go back and re-read your writings but I remembered a completely different attitude. I also know that KE04 stayed involved in the lawsuits, as far as I know until the end. It's your tone as much as content that surprises me, anyway. Kerry doesn't deserve it and I thought you knew that. Evidently you don't. Hence, not who I thought you were. No biggie though - not the first I've gotten wrong.

but I completely agree with your rant.

(Though I kept thinking, "I wonder when he's going to stop yelling?")

that we follow that help us to avoid making decisions. If we have to make a decision and it's the wrong one, we can be blamed. If we follow the system even though it consistently leads us to what would otherwise be the "wrong decision", we cannot be blamed.

This is why you see smart, educated people doing things so stupid it boggles the mind. They are just following the system for dealing with problems.

and as often as I went across the Peace Bridge into Canada - I knew NOT to answer "I didn't make the team this year." when they asked if we were all American.

Even THEN, when you didn't need a passport or birth certificate or whatever. Certain things you don't fuck with.

People that are paid to keep people safe need a little respect for their jobs. Don't make a statement deliberately fucking with them, or hundreds of civilians who have been trained to be afraid.

There have been so many news stories critical of airport security, about fake bombs getting through in luggage tests, and the like, that they are hyper-vigilant.

Even if you are only 'pretending' to grab the tiger by the tail, you really can't blame said beast for mauling you.

There will be death. It's unavoidable. As a nation, we'll no doubt adopt the "bear defense" strategy - each of us knowing that we don't have to be the fastest runner when being chased by the bear. We only need someone slower around. Some will adopt the Tonya Harding tactic.

Until a toll is paid, Fear will stalk us - prodded by those who ride on its tail. The only question is how many must die to stop our headlong stampede and, with the strength of our combined wills, kill the beast and its riders instead.

Those who'd terrorize us are not on the other side of the planet. They're the ones getting fat and powerful while we run.

"It is what it is." While I think the reaction to her "art" was over the top, we've been conditioned through constant bombardment for the last 6 years that around every corner is another threat and that "they" are out to get us. I was working in Manhattan on 9/11, and while that was one of the most horrifying days of my life, it was much more traumatizing to go back into the city everyday for another 3 years and be confronted with the vision of "Atlas" cops on every damned street corner. Probably worse because I worked in mid-town (right across the street from MSG on 7th Ave).

The problem was that so many people expressed the "well, it makes me feel safe" meme that I started to think I was the one who was nuts because these guys scared the shit out of me on numerous levels. Not fun living/working in an armed camp. And it wasn't because of the heavy weapons - my Dad spent over 25 years in the US Army and we lived on bases for at least 12 of those years - I'm not unaccustomed to having weapons - seriously big ones - around. It's the attitude. "I'm looking at everything you do, and I'm taking notes."

This MIT student, IMHO, had every right to wear her art. But given the current environment, it's not surprising she got the reaction she got. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon, and that makes me more sad and angry than I can express. I don't know what can be done about it, because it seems that a good portion of the Dems in Washington have bought into the bullshit. My 16 year old nephew said to me last weekend "We're so f^cked up now that it will take until my grandkids are senior citizens to repair all the damage." He's the son of 2 former Bushbots, who are just now beginning to feel scared for their 2 sons' futures. (I gave him the DU web address and a handful of others - he's already reading avidly, per our conversation about 2 hours ago.) He's bright, motivated, and interested in a career in government. But I digress...

You're right to be concerned that someone's not going to be as lucky as Miss MIT, and the first step in any progress here is getting people to take the blinders off to what's really going on. Dan Rather's latest move can't hurt. You've also done a great service with your articles. Too many just don't get it, and what scares me more than anything is the incredible scope of ignorance from the masses.

...the one-eyed person is in a freak show.

I used to be a bartender near a major university. One lesson I learned there was that many geniuses don't have a lot of common sense. This incident seems to fall in that category. Perhaps MIT needs to hold some kind of indoctrination sessions with their student body that explains to them that they must think on a mundane level about how they look to other people when they step out of the door into public places everyday in order to avoid incidents like this in the future.

Of course this would have never happened if we didn't have the "Armed Madhouse" in the White House that Greg Palast speaks of to begin with.

Three, all geniuses of science and literature, legitimately. One of them was born in Italy and thus spoke Italian, then moved to Columbia when he was 10 and thus learned Spanish, and then came to school in America and thus learned English....and was a straight A+ bio-chem/pre-med major at a bad-ass Jesuit school whose studies were written in his third language. He used to dream in Italian. The other two were the same kind of cat.

I saved all three of their lives...when I hauled them out of oncoming traffic by the scruff of their necks, because they were too smart so look up and avoid getting annihilated. Seriously.

You're quite right. Smart people need bodyguards to protect them from themselves. :)

--and save Pierre Curie for us all. I'm sure Marie would appreciate it too.

We really don't have trained security anyplace these days . What we have are on alert loaded gun crazed fools . Look what happened with the taser deal .

It seemed easy enough to place those cartoon figures on prime locations .

The youth as we all were once take things as a joke but the trouble is these security nuts do not .

I really don't put much faith in anyone with their finger on the trigger being able to keep a cool head and thinking first .

There were mixed feelings about guns in schools like VT which I personally feel is an insane idea , just last week there was a story about a female college teacher wanting to carry her concealed weapon in the classroom .

It has gone beyond the tipping point with the fear all ramped up and sooner of later someone is going to get shot before the questions are swarming around it the shooters mind .

I'm sticking with common sense.

NO sense at all can co-exist in a state of political terrorism.

Utterly foolish and dangerous thing to do. And I'm pretty far out there on the anti-authoritarian scale.

Was there a question here?

because it's close to where you live. But whatever. That thing didn't look like a bomb to me. Maybe it wasn't the wisest choice in clothes to wear to the airport. Maybe the security guys should have more education in terrorist bomb-making besides watching "24" and old Lethal Weapon movies.

The crazy ass authorities your country are dealing with are crazy. You capitulate to craziness and you turn the craziness into the norm.

Would you walk into an airport with something like that strapped to your body?

I've seen it. Here's a "should" for you, I SHOULD have no problem wearing such a device in an airport or anywhere else. It is very obviously a small strip of harmless generic circuitboard attached to some batteries. Unless the clever girl had found some way to mold plastic explosive into an intricate circuitboard shape... so as to, er, disguise it... rather then just putting it into her bag, or molding it into some OTHER shape that wasn't circuit board and didn't have the potential to attract suspicion, which is very obviously what someone trying to bring a REAL bomb into an airport would do, there's no excuse for mistaking that device for a bomb. THERE'S NOWHERE FOR THE EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL TO GO. There's not enough bulk in that device to contain enough explosive to blow up a GNAT.

Here's a question for you. Do you want people carrying around random electronics to be in danger of being shot by idiots, or would you rather your airport security teams had some idea of what a bomb IS? Because NOBODY with any actual training in recognising explosive devices could POSSIBLY mistake that thing for a bomb.

Doesn't it freak you out just the teensiest bit that the people guarding your airlines haven't the least idea of what it is that they're supposed to be defending you against?

These idiots have screwed up and they're covering their tracks with a lot of bluster by trying to blame her, and there's nothing more to it.

Especially at Logan, you are walking into a caudron of paranoid ill-informed idiocy that is armed to the teeth and packing Federal authority. We agree on the madness of it. I'm just saying people can't simply whistle past the graveyard because they don't like carved marble. There are some things you just have to deal with on their own terms until those things can be fixed or removed. This is one of them.

We agree, and you make my point. Yes to all of what you said...and that's what I'm saying. See it for what it is, fight to change it...but don't fuck with it unless you have excellent and comprehensive medical coverage. Walking into traffic because you refuse to heed the cars isn't anything but stupidity that bends light.

:toast:

Too many times I find that people cannot appreciate the enormous responsibility those charged with protecting others' safety feel.

Those who don't believe al q is distinct from the bush junta esp. downplay any sort of security issue... which, imo, takes them out of any serious consideration by anyone. That's just the reality of this moment in life. I have my real questions about the befores, durings and afters of that event, but even so I know that there are real threats that ppl face.

when I was traveling overseas somewhat regularly, in EVERY European country I was in, their military had soldiers with UZIs patrolling inside the airports, using the moving walkways, mingling with people... they were very conspicuous. One of my first trips was to Rome more than a year after the shootings in the their main airport-

1985 December 27th. - Italy, Rome, Leonardo da Vinci Airport: 4 terrorists enter the check in area of EL-AL, TWA, and PanAm and start firing with submachine guns and throwing grenades into the crowd; 14 people were killed (including 3 attackers) and 70 injured.

This was in the entrance to the airport where people first check in, not beyond in the passenger-only area. Believe me, I would have not taken someone who busted through the entrance doors to greet a friend as a harmless merry prankster. People need to use some basic common sense, you know?

For twenty years, European airports have not allowed people to greet passengers at planes and have had safety devices to prevent someone from throwing a bomb from general public areas and passenger areas. so, to say that other nations with experience with terrorists have not had visible presences.. with loaded weapons, even, is just wrong.

The problem I have with some on the left is the apparent belief that the issue is not how to create a safe environment while securing constitutional rights, but rather the issue is that there is no threat... or that the threat is only in the corridors of power in DC. While everyone should have freedom of belief, I would not want anyone who thinks that way charged with protecting the security of anything.

dismissing EVERY concern is the mirror of wanting to close down borders.

:wow:

"Aghast" doesn't even begin to do justice to how I feel about the sheer blind High IQ stupidity of her behavior.

Hekate

decided to do something that could have gotten her killed or hurt.

I understand what you are saying about what could happen and what the reality is living in this neocon world, BUT I'm not sure it is realistic or even desirable to have everyone live in fear of running afoul of the law.

I'm not great at expressing what I'm thinking, but it seems to me that the best thing we can do is continue to point how the overreactions are just that and try to drag the crazies back from the edge. If we all cave to it and accept that it is what it is and we walk on tippy toes so as not to rattle any cages we succeed in, to some extent, validating the overzealousness of the fearfully minded.

It would seem to me that your common sense would tell you that it probably isn't smart to strap a fake bomb to your chest, call it art and head off to the nearest airport. Is it really authoritarian to tell people that's not a smart thing to do??

Just seems like common sense to me. Just like it seems to me your common sense would tell you that if you monopolize a public forum in a loud and obnoxious way, somebody is going to ask you to leave. And if you refuse to leave, somebody is going to try to make you leave. Just makes sense to me.

But everybody keeps telling me I am authoritarian, so I might not be the best person to answer this.

in the "dangerous" items category, if they're going to go after this student. Cell phones certainly have wires (internal), and batteries, etc., and it's been the contention of many fictional plots that they can be used as detonators, among other things. Since I have very rudimentary electronic skills, I believe those plot point are likely correct.

Yet, when security sees people with a cell phone, do they react with the same hysteria?

I remember that when I was a kid (and I was too young to go to Woodstock), Rock music was of the devil, Yippies were hippies with guns, and if you had long hair, well, it was only a matter of time until criminal tendencies manifested, at least according to some rather authoritarian elements of society at the time.

I really believe that a large issue with this is not whether she was stopped and questioned, but that she was arrested and hauled off, charges pending. What charges? Having a faux bomb? Yeah, right. It wasn't a bomb, faux or fake or otherwise, it was simply art, a wearable light show.

I guess nobody remembers the Electric Horseman, or the character Dynamo from Running Man. This is not new stuff, we're deep in the electronic era, and it started earlier than the year 1900. Wearable lights are not particularly new or even original, but they are UNIQUE, because few wear them.

Oh, my, it's a wire! FEAR FEAR FEAR. Run, run for your life, wires must connect to bombs! Dontcha know?

and self incarcerate ourselves in "free-speech zones" we have circumscribed our range and made our lives smaller. If we do not rise to defend those who will not be caged, we accept our incarceration.

Is a poor wardrobe choice by a 19 year old deserving of a death sentence, or being unilaterally declared an "enemy combatant" and disappeared? If a trigger happy airport agent had killed the girl, would we have risen up? Maybe that is what is would take, a martyr.

We live in dangerous, dreadful times.

A mentally ill man had a panic attack, charged off a plane that was still at the gate, and was shot 16 TIMES by security. IN THE TERMINAL.

No circuit board, no flashing lights, no Play-Doh, no stupid shit. Just an under-medicated neuropsychiatric disorder. He had already CLEARED security, as he was on the fucking plane. He wasn't looking to be a smart-ass or "have some fun".

No uprising over HIS martyrdom.

at least here on DU there was-
i remember it distinctly-

And was one who was outraged by his needless killing.

I was utterly outraged.

Six years is a long time in the national memory but not so long in the cities where planes departed on a normal fall day and were part of the biggest shock in recent American history. When I lived in Boston pre 9/11, I can recall an incident where a Boston police bomb tech had a suspicious package blow up in his face. A few years before that, an Armenian rights group blew up a Cambridge store as a warning to its owner, a Turkish counsel, and threatened to murder him next. Unlike some parts of the country, it's not just an abstract threat in Boston for law enforcement.

I doubt that it was very well thought out on the part of the student and I do think that making any charge stick is ridiculous. However, treating it like a potential threat was not. You can't wear your flip flops through airport security for fear of a hidden device so yes, a sweatshirt with a rectangular bulge just might attract someone's attention, especially if any bit of the wiring was discernible.

I also agree that the country is batshit crazy about such stuff and I wish it would change, but until enough average Americans start saying no to the nonsense it's not going to get any better and probably will get much, much worse.

There already was one. A man was on a plane that was about to take off. He got agitated for some unkonwn reason. His wife was trying to explain that he has a mental problem. The Air Marshalls wrestled with this man and then shot & killed him. Quite a different situation but still one that should not have happened.

Halloween be canceled?

but your linked-to rant, in my opinion, was not authoritarian; it was intelligent.

After the incident in Boston, I personally believe there may be some hope for the nation after all. Someone actually noticed what could have really and truly been a danger, rather than a toddler with a sippy-cup.

9/11 or no 9/11, batshit-crazy or not--I'm glad security jumped on that.

People who do this kind of shit, in my opinion, are looking for trouble, so by all means--give it to them.

Like everyone else on this site, I'm outraged at the curtailing of our civil liberties, some of which has indeed made me very, very nervous (and upset). However, I can't help but also be disgusted by the incessant claims that we're living in a "police state". Such claims invalidate the suffering endured by those who do live under such terrible circumstances--and those who have either escaped or lived through their own countries' "police state" era.

I am not 20 something and I thought the "Lite Brite" case was a massive and intentional over reaction. Not the fact someone would have checked it out, but the fact that they went public in hysterics without first finding out what it was (which should have taken all of five minutes, i mean come on, it was little lite brite guy's on a board). I saw it as another chance for authorities to scare the crap out of people rather than protect them. I and not as sure this case was an over reaction, although in the story i read, the cop that was almost lamenting that he hadn't shot the girl to death was the most disturbing thing about the whole story.

He was probably just really pissed. And rightfully so.

Follow the OP's link to the story and check out the photo. I see a look of smug, self-satisfaction on that kid's face.

It also seems she doesn't have a lot of support. From the article:

"MIT said in a statement that "Ms. Simpson's actions were reckless and understandably created alarm at the airport."

Police reacted properly to Simpson's appearance, said Arnold Howitt, who heads the research program on domestic preparedness for terrorism at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"It's difficult to tell what it is from a distance," Howitt said. "The officers' lives are on the line, as well as anyone's who is within range" of the potential explosive device, he added."

MIT made a statement, and another statement came from a hot-shot academic at Harvard. Not exactly undereducated people.

Having to check out that someone was wearing an odd sweatshirt? Damn that would piss me off if I carried an M-16 in an airport and actually had to do something, yet didn't get to shoot anyone. What a pisser indeed. I have no idea what the cop's feelings were, but I know it was repeated ad nauseum in all the coverage that they were "this close" to shooting her. "She's lucky she's not in the morgue". Hoo Rah. Hut Hut Hut

Calm as lakewater on a windless day when it comes to this shit.

Logan was where the Tower planes came from.

We in Boston have LNT tankers passing the slip to Everett every day; if one of those gets bombed or sabotaged, the blast radius will be wide enough to level everything out to Fenway Park.

Tall buildings. On 9/11, my mother and girlfriend were 45 stories up inside office buildings, but all the phones were jammed, so I couldn't reach them...and then the F-14s started doing racetrack flights over the city. All day long.

Enjoy Indy. Comfort comes in many forms. Some of us, sadly, aren't able to take self-satisfied security on faith.

Oh, and Peyton is ground round come 11/4. ;)

(I mean no offense; making a salient point in my opinion, apologies if too harsh.)

i'm sure your perception (and most assuredly a correct one) that your locale is a primary target for whatever horrible thing is coming would certainly go a long way to explain your reaction. Of course the fact that about 60 miles from here they store enough nerve gas to kill us all doesn't make me sleep very well at night either. It is not so much that authorities react to potential threats that bothers me, it is that they seem more interested in creating a panic, in blowing it up in public to a worse case scenario, rather than handling the problem. As for your delusion that the pretty boy and the hoodie have a chance against my boys, well I'll chalk that up to the thin air in all those tall building there in the big city.

That truthout link was one time I tried to make sense of it.

If you live in fear, you empower every bastard out there - Bush bastards and all. If you ignore certain realities, you do the nation a grave disservice. We've created a bomb-maker's Quantico in Iraq...and elsewhere. It will come back to hit us here at home sooner or later.

That opens the potential for Red Alert, suspended posse comitatus, and martial law. The end of everything that is or was America. Our policies (then and now) have created a couple of monsters, and a whole legion of impoverished, radicalized, hopeless, uneducated, unemployed, widowed/orphaned/berzerk-with-sorrow death-cultists who listen to the monsters because they have a microphone and whose only god is Vengeance.

I didn't do it, didn't vote for those who did, and live my life to try and solve the situation to the best of my meager abilities. I didn't start it, but I've inherited it, as have you. Chicken Littling around like an electrified doom-freak is not the answer. Pretending it's all bullshit is not the answer, either.

So...doing my best.

:toast:

Fear is bred into our bones.

It seems like human being are incapable of finding a lasting balance between security and freedom. You have freedom until something happens, fear kicks in, we overcompensate....and bam, we've normalized deviance and we're living in an authoritarian state.

I don't think there is a solution.

Not while humans are humans, and while humans are filled with fear.

;)

If that last line isn't crazy after everything before it, well...I dunno, man.

That happened.

Really. It did.

but I didn't know how to post a pic of that lite-bright guy, so I lazily ~ not ignored it, but didn't post anything about it. So thank you for speaking/recognizing the similarity of it all.....

I think that young woman was very smart and very brave to point up our nation HYSTERIA, and it IS hysteria:

HYSTERIA
Main Entry: hys·te·ria
Pronunciation: his-'ter-E-&, -'tir-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus
1 : a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions
2 : behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess <political hysteria>

---------

'Dumb' people - people who aren't edumacated enough get all excited about things that they don't understand. Just like in centuries past....people would get all excited about an eclipse, for instance....b/c they didn't know/understand what was going on/HOW IT ALL WORKS....what is REALLY WORTHY of being afraid of. I guess when you don't KNOW what to be afraid of, you'll be afraid of 'everything that you don't understand'....that's the (unfortunate) 'default' position. :-(

The MIT student hasn't learned much that is really useful if she had the mind to pick this as a fight.

Another couple things that comes to my mind, Mr. Pitt:
1) mental health
2) un-raised children

We don't have enough of the former. We do have an unhealthy abundance of the latter.

There are a lot of people who could do with some cognitive therapy. It is possible to learn better ways of satisfying their need for attention. Egocentrics can be shown how to consider other people without having to completely surrendering the self.

And we could do with less people who grew bigger but didn't grow up. We could do with less people who coasted through childhood and adolescence without guidance. We could do with less people who did not have to face consequences for actions, therefore failing to understand that there are consequences. There is a cure for the 'terrible twos' and we do not have to have a huge population of big two-year-olds insisting the rest of us just deal with their arrested development.

There are a lot of fucking stupid, self-centered people who have not had any guidance or incentive to learn JUDGMENT so they can make judgment calls regarding their own behavior.

It isn't authoritarian to expect people to consider their actions will get reactions that might not be favorable. It isn't authoritarian to expect others to fucking THINK and behave in a manner which deals with, yes, WHAT IS.

You don't have to be a door mat or wire an electronic chip on your shoulder, daring the man to knock it off. There is middle ground.

No, I won't show my receipt unless a store has the balls to actually make a charge that they think I am a thief. And, no, I won't applaud a stupid-ass stunt at an airport by someone who SHOULD have enough brains to realize they were picking a useless fight.

The old adage about learning to pick your fights comes to mind. Some battles must be fought. Some are infantile howling and dangerous wasted effort.

Human energy and time are finite. Battle wisely. It is what any warrior or revolutionary worth her/his salt knows.

created a bomb as a piece of "art". It proved to be very effective in causing quite a stir.

The assignment was for a sculpture class, where we were required to draw words out of a hat and create sculptures based on the particular word drawn. He drew the word "terror". For critique, we were to hang our piece in the hallway, which doubled for a mini art gallery for students. For the intro to his piece, he had made airplanes from cardboard, which he had burned on the sides and stuff, and had hung on the wall. He had a timer taped up the pipes above that he timed to go off during the critique. When the class looked up, there was the piece -- his "bomb" -- taped very realistically to the heating apparatus of the building with silver tape, wires and all. It was very effective to demonstrate his word, "terror".

But, the story doesn't end there, nor does the lesson learned. The instructor asked all the students to leave up their work for others to see. Days later, a maintenance worker saw the "bomb" taped to the pipes in the ceiling. The bomb squad, cops, fire department -- everyone was called in.


We were sitting at home watching the news on tv when we heard about this, btw -- a bomb scare in the art department at our school! Well, it didn't take long for my friend and me to put two and two together. Shit, man, were we scared for him -- that any minute we'd have a knock on the door and he'd be taken in! I remind you this was the mid 80's -- before 9/11.

He never got into trouble and it resulted in being attributed to "an anonymous art student's art work..." on all the news channels. My friend's name was never given to any of the authorities. After all, the instructor made the decision to leave it up, so ultimately, his ass was on the line, too, I suppose. My friend caught some shit for it from the department heads -- "What in the hell we're you thinking!" -- but, it WAS his assignment -- and it turned out to be pretty damned effective, all in all. He had no intention of creating this kind of reaction, of course. It wasn't intended as a hoax. He was just making his art work to fulfill an assignment, and probably would have taken the crap down out of the rafters had our instructor not said leave up the art work. No one, not even the older, presumably wiser, instructor had the foresight to think, "Hey, this looks pretty real and others might think it's real, too ..." It was pretty naive on everyone's part, actually. I mean, I was part of the class, too, and thinking back, never once did it cross my mind that someone might think it was real. It was art to me. Just another assignment, actually.

Lessons learned? DON'T STRAP WIRE-AND-BATTERY SHIT TO CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE LIKE BRIDGES, HIGHWAYS, RAIL OVERPASSES AND HOSPITALS...and I will now add, UNIVERSITIES to your list.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1881031

Will-

I live in the Boston area. (You probably don't recall meeting at the Cambridge Commons for an early
DU gathering.)

My opinion is that this incident is a symptom of how successfully the entire country has been reduced
to idiocy, paranoia, and fear.

I cited a recent incident in Boston in which two people were severely injured; but nobody pushed the
terror button, even though they could. And it happened right at MIT. Do you have any memories of
this incident, which happened less than two weeks ago?

I'm sorry, but if this is still a free country, the girl has a right to wear anything that isn't dangerous.
If the police had a problem, they should have simply ASKED HER A QUESTION.

This "threaten death first, then ask" is going to get someone killed, as you say. But that doesn't mean
we should treat that as normal or expect it. If we do, then they have killed our spirit.

I remember the movie "Ghandi", where the South African police are beating the crap out of him and he
is still shoveling petitions into a box. He simply did not buy the bullshit.

And we can't either.

arendt

People, of all ages, do stupid things. A kid walks into an airport with a "wired" shirt and gets confronted by the cops. Okay. As others have said, it is what it is. Whether she was stupid or thought she could gain some notoriety/attention, who knows? Yeah, she could've been killed, but she wasn't. We can't live our lives with woulda coulda and shoulda as our guiding principles.

We have Darwin Awards to recognize those who are too stupid to stay in the gene pool.

But sometimes we have to get a grip on ourselves. If it's partly a matter of this MIT student learning to pick her battles, maybe it's also partly a matter of learning how to respond. If we (you) give in to the hysteria on either side -- whether we defend the actions of the security personal or go ape-shit criticizing it, defend the right of an innocent person to wear whatever she wants or condemn her for stupidity in this terrorized atmosphere -- we accomplish damn little. Instead, we waste a whole lot of energy, piss a lot of people off, and generally have to come right back and re-examine our actions and our motivations.

If, instead, we debate the issue rationally, we might gain some insights.

It isn't just happening in Boston. There's stupid shit happening all over. The imams in Minneapolis, for instance. Because, y'know, someone, someone from security, could have seen them being escorted off the plane and just assumed they were terrorists and . . . . . .Or whatever it was that happened there. Point being, shouldn't those Muslims have known that their praying would be taken the wrong way by other passengers?

If this young woman from MIT -- I haven't read all the articles and so I don't know many of the details -- is 19, she would only have been 13 on 9/11/01. Her perception of those events will be very different from ours. And it's the lasting impression of 9/11/01, not only from the initial experience but also from the constant cultural reinforcement, that affects the way we think about it and react to references to it. I'm not saying that because we all experience the reinforcement that we react to it the same way. But the older we are, the more nuanced, the more complex our perspective.

A good comparison is to look at how many of us referenced 9/11/01 to our recollections of the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations; those who had no recollections of the traumatic events of the 60s had a very different perception of 9/11/01.

But ranting and raving, in all caps and bold, is not productive. It's a temper tantrum. It's not authoritarian -- though it could be a symptom of an authoritarian personality -- it's just juvenile. And you know, unless you're in major denial, that this isn't the first time it's happened. And you even know, with your "kinda-sorta detonated" observation, that you lost control.

You wanted to know what we think. Well, that's what *I*, but of course, I'm only


Tansy Gold

Yeesh.

with a battery with exposed wires and a homemade looking "something " hanging off of your body.

I don't blame the security one bit for reacting the way they did. Hell, I would have expected them to react like that before 9-11.

A little 9-volt can explode a big bomb and this girl has no excuse for her stupidity.

I don't give a shit if she's a Rhodes Scholar with nineteen fucking Nobel Prizes.

WTF? Are security guards just supposed to be nonchalant with unknown homemade electronic items?

How many people here at DU would see that and think it was an art project?

Jesus H. Christ. I know there is an abundance of stupid responses and over-reaction in the TERRA TERRA FEAR environment created by the warmongers, but I don't consider this one of them.

The police response to the airport employee call was prudent. They safely apprehended the person and "bomb" and took her into custody.

Upon finding out it that the device was not bomb, an investigation should happen to determine if she was causing trouble or just as she says, an artist with no idea her art could be perceived as a threat. I don't know if charging her immediately is necessary legally, but if it is, then so be it.

If the investigation shows that she has indeed worn it for several days and there is no evidence of a planned hoax (emails, text messages, conversations with friends), then drop the charges. But if it was a planned hoax, she needs to learn the experience the consequences for such things.

react to this bull crap, even when it is just a dumbass prank.


Terror! terror! terror!



These borderline fools get all of this attention , and it just gives ideas to other borderline fools .

And it plays right into the hands of the so called media , and those they support (ask Dan Rather)

in terms of her safety and public safety. Passengers and security personnel in airports are jittery--it's a recipe for panic and overreaction. I don't want to hear bullshit about "artwork" and creative expression...and by the way, if you're going to get into trouble or possibly shot, at least do it for GOOD art--not the crap she was wearing.

I'm sorry that that girl got arrested for basically gluing PC parts on her sweatshirt. I'm sure 6 years ago, 10 years ago, hell 20 years ago, nobody would have thought a thing about it, even a Southie cop. Just some freaky college kid hanging around the airport.

Logan
The only time I ever passed through Logan was on my way up to Grey Maine for Christmas. My beloved and I were going to visit his aunt and uncle for the holidays. Weather was excellent; the snow hadn't fallen yet that year. It was crystal clear sunny and blue skies all the way. I know you love Boston Will, but man, everybody in that airport was either arrogant or rude, from the skycaps to the desk clerks. :wtf: I've been in Amsterdam, Atlanta, La Guardia, Newark, Frankfurt, the world's busiest, airports with even greater security needs than Logan's. I have never encountered a 'tude on steroids like at Logan. They acted like they were doing me the tiniest of favors by deigning to notice me and SO. This was 15 years ago, but I remember thinking that it seemed they'd rather none of us passengers interrupt their day at all. I think its really darling of you to love your hometown and all it's quirks; it's one of the more endearing things about you. But God damn Boston needs some manners! And I'm a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman. I can only imagine how they treat people of color. I am telling you this to let you know that this problem at Logan is not new.

The Cops
I agree with others here that the cops need to get an education on new technology and the fact that components are so cheap and interchangeable PRONTO. This isn't just so they can recognize Lite Brites and home made LED displays, but so they can identify a working apparatus, IF they should ever find a legitimate one, and not mistake it for a child's toy. At the rate Logan's cops are going, that's exactly where they are headed. That is the real stickler that should unsettle you. Even older Southie Irish cops can learn new things. They must.

If they are smart, they will use these two incidents as a chance to lose some of their parochialism and learn about current tactics. It's not just a matter of manners, it's a matter of good security to be able to interact with people and tell whether or not they are just travelers or something requiring more scrutiny.

The Student
She's interesting. Her "boyfriend" seems considerably older than she is. It's of little consequence, except that it makes me wonder if she was really the instigator here. He didn't seem all that irritated that she got arrested. He seemed nonplussed by it all. In fact, so did she. Interesting that. It's entirely possible that they both knew she was going to cause an incident. Perhaps that was the point. Also I'm really surprised she didn't get stopped and turned away at the door initially. If Logan officials are that gun-shy, how was she able to waltz through the door and begin security checks?

RE: Kids testing boundaries in irritating ways... Yes it happens that way. Remember the ATHF Lite Brites ad folks were in their 30s. What's their excuse? Be sensitive to the air of terrorism? Act cautious? Don't you know we live in dangerous times?

Well, no, they don't. Nobody in this country does. We haven't for a very long time. The feeling of personal jeopardy is out of reach of most people's memories, except those who have known war directly. As for this student, she might have a new appreciation for just how far you can press someone who is already on edge.

A grandson, 15, refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance last week. He said, "This country is not united, it is divided."

My first reaction was, (OH Shit, he has been listening to me too much" "He is going to get in trouble"... ) Then I thought about it for a while an sent him the Thomas Jefferson quote, "Dissent is the truest form of patriotism".

He listens to Dogs of War, Pink Floyd.
I remember the day last year that he was so excited to share that CD with me. (I was amused)

He said several students joined him, and sat down that day. He has since stood for the pledge, telling the teacher it is because he (the teacher) wants him to stand, not because he honors the symbol that has stood for a country that has done so much damage to the world for the last 6 years.

Bush stole the election when he was 10. One third of his life has passed with this sorry excuse for a government at the helm. How could he trust his elders? We have done nothing to stop it. He marched in protests with me.

He now thinks the country is TOXIC. That includes him. No wonder he spends most of his free time at the skate park or on video games.

Insane? No, shit! Who, in their right mind, would put up with this?

I am thinking that hiding in the woods would be a good idea, and I am 57.

So, I can see my grandson, doing something equally stupid for not a good enough reason. I can see our police state shooting him down for it too!

The question is ... WHAT IS WORSE.

Innocence is just that, innocence. Murder, is also just that, murder. We are, as a country, paying for the murder of innocent people, there and here. We are also paying for the incarceration of innocent people, for non-violent crimes.

There is a lot of work to do.

Maybe a good look at Edvard Munch's the Silent Scream, is in order.

And then, I will go walk in my garden and feed the birds.

I will be ready to sign more petitions, march in more protests, send emails trying to get some of the idiots I know to wake up, and keep reading DU.

If you hear of a better way to fight this, shout it out!

"In an insane society a sane man must appear insane." You have to be aware of how nutty things have gotten and not try to push the envelope or you could get hurt. As you pointed out in the other thread, this happened in Logan Airport where they failed to stop 9-11 from happening. The security people there must be on pins and needles at the slightest suggestion of anything remotely resembling a bomb. The power of suggestion is very powerful. If you tell someone there is a boogie man behind the curtain over and over and over, then the curtain moves, you may see that curtain getting blown to bits even though it was just the wind moving it. This doesn't make these people bad they are just nervous as hell and scared of their own shadows. We must be mindful of this. It doesn't make us enablers of authoritarianism it just means we need to become psychologists and understand how the human brain works when a society is in shock and keeps getting shocked by those in power.

Perhaps somewhere down the line when we have honest leadership again things will mellow out a bit. However, even then I wouldn't where something that looks like it could be a bomb into an airport. Airports are all about security and those in charge of security have an obligation of protecting all people in the area. Bomb threats are constantly happening to airports and it's just not something to mess around with in even the slightest way.

It seems you are torn by your heart and your common sense in relation to the times. Thats a good, sincere, righteous place to be and you should commend yourself for being so thoughtful and for feeling torn on such a difficult issue that tears us all in half.

And the circuit board she was wearing was pretty damned small.

But, what this did was expose a hole in the security at the Logan airport.
She shouldn't have been able to even get that far into the airport with a blinky circuit board on her chest to begin with.

Selling someone fake drugs carries the same penalty as selling someone real drugs, at least in my state. If a substance is reasonably presented as crack or marijuana or whatever, then it's considered to be as bad as the real thing. Why wouldn't the same standard apply to a bomb scare? If you present something that a reasonably intelligent person could interpret as a bomb, and call it instead "art," then why shouldn't you be arrested? Why shouldn't I shout "fire" in a crowded theater?

I wouldn't have known she was "ethnic" if someone else hadn't mentioned it, and, after watching the video, I'm still wondering what ethnicity she is. To me she looks like an Italian chick with a remarkably bad perm.

Also, this ain't a Lite-Brite flipping the bird; this is someone with circuit boards and wires running into clay trying to pass into a metal detector and bomb screener.

I'm reminded of the Nirvana lyric, "Just because you're paranoid / don't mean they're not after you." And just because this entire nation has apparently gone totally shithouse mad doesn't mean that there aren't equally shithouse mad people from a variety of ethnicities and races that, on occasion, try to kill people in memorable ways.

Also, she can't be TOO "brilliant:" otherwise she wouldn't have tried to pass off a performance art bomb at the Logan International Airport, would she?

'authoritarianism' is throwing gays, or ladies selling vibrators, in jail in Texas for consenting adult activities.

'authoritarianism' is making fighting porn -consenting adult porn, pictures of consenting adults fucking- the #1 priority of Alberto Gonzales's DOJ.

'authoritarianism' is NOT, in my humble opinion, telling a cigarette smoker they can't light up at a gas station. In a hospital ICU. In a restaurant. Telling them they have to go outside.

'authoritarianism' is not when the guy in the blue shirt asks to check your reciept as you leave the big box store. In my opinion.

This girl wore a circuit board and a battery and wires on the outside of a shirt, into an airport. It was a dumb move. If it was an honest mistake, and it sounds like it was- and not a publicity stunt, then the authorities should drop any charges against her. But to go overboard and blame the security people for not knowing that this was "just" an art project.. it's silly. There is no god-given right to walk into an airport with wires and batteries hanging off your clothes.

We seem to have a lot of "experts" here who are laughing about the ridiculous idea that anyone could glance at this thing at have a question about it; but jpgray has an excellent thread with pictures about just how small and innocuous looking detonators can be:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1881770

It wasn't a bomb, but it was a dumb thing to wear on the outside of a shirt, into an airport. Like I said- if it was an honest mistake, I don't think she should be charged, but I don't think she should be held up as hero or even a "victim". In this case, it was a difficult situation but the security people were doing their jobs and they did them. If that makes me an 'authoritarian' (a truly funny notion) I can live with that.

You had 2 terrorist attacks 6 years ago.

Any batshit craziness you think you going through is caused by irrational fear.

To be honest, I find the exploitation of this event in order to scare people idiotic and somewhat cynical. She didn't have a bomb, she didn't mean to scare anyone.

She was on the dumb side, but the cops should have detained her calmly, asked her questions, then let her go. Why the hell did you and I even hear about this bullshit.



Probably so we would start ranting out of fear.

"How the United States should react if Iraq acquired WMD. The first line of defense...should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence--if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs
2/1/2000

"We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction...In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Detroit, Fund-Raiser
6/20/2002

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
9/6/2002

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
CNN Late Edition
9/8/2002

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to UN General Assembly
9/12/2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

- George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002

"The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand."

- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material -- whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW program."

- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists...The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Denver, Address To Air National Guard
12/1/2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
12/2/2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/4/2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003

"I am absolutely convinced, based on the information that's been given to me, that the weapon of mass destruction which can kill more people than an atomic bomb -- that is, biological weapons -- is in the hands of the leadership of Iraq."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
MSNBC Interview
1/10/2003

"What is unique about Iraq compared to, I would argue, any other country in the world, in this juncture, is the exhaustion of diplomacy thus far, and, No. 2, this intersection of weapons of mass destruction."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
NewsHour Interview
1/22/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Addresses the U.N. Security Council
2/5/2003

"In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
2/26/2003

"If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us...But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Interview with Radio France International
2/28/2003

"I am not eager to send young Americans into harm's way in Iraq, or to see innocent people killed or hurt in military operations. Given all of the facts and circumstances known to us, however, I am convinced that if we wait, a threat will continue to materialize in Iraq that could cause incalculable damage to world peace in general, and to the United States in particular."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Letter to Future of Freedom Foundation
3/1/2003

"Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it's time has run out."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Senate Speech
3/7/2003

"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to UN Security Council
3/7/2003

"Getting rid of Saddam Hussein's regime is our best inoculation. Destroying once and for all his weapons of disease and death is a vaccination for the world."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Washington Post op-ed
3/16/2003

"Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Meet The Press
3/16/2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

- George W. Bush, President
Address to the Nation
3/17/2003

"The United States...is now at war so we will not ever see what terrorists could do if supplied with weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Senate Debate
3/20/2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And...as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."

- General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command
Press Conference
3/22/2003

"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."

- Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman
Press Briefing
3/22/2003

"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."

- Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member
Washington Post, p. A27
3/23/2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003

"We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as Saddam Hussein, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Speech to American Israel Political Action Committee
3/31/2003

"We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction...and terrorist groups -- networks -- is a critical link. And the thought that...some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty."

- Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar
Washington Post op-ed
4/9/2003

"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then well learn precisely where things were and what was done."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Meet the Press
4/13/2003

"I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country. Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure."

- General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command
Fox News
4/13/2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."

- George W. Bush, President
NBC Interview
4/24/2003

"There are people who in large measure have information that we need...so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
4/25/2003

"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/3/2003

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to Reporters
5/4/2003

"We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Fox News Interview
5/4/2003

"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/6/2003

"U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
Reuters Interview
5/12/2003

"I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden."

- Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
5/13/2003

"We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Interview with Australian Broadcasting
5/13/2003

"Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."

- Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
5/21/2003

"It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech at a weapons factory in Ohio
5/25/2003

"Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."

- Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
5/26/2003

"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations
5/27/2003

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Vanity Fair interview
5/28/2003

"The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
5/29/2003

"We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Infinity Radio Interview
5/30/2003

"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

- George W. Bush, President
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003

"You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on."

- George W. Bush, President
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

"It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

- Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Press Interview
5/30/2003

"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there."

- Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency
Press Conference
5/30/2003

"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Press Briefing
6/2/2003

"We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth."

- George W. Bush, President Camp Sayliya, Qatar
6/5/2003

"I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Fox News Interview
6/8/2003

"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
Meet the Press
6/8/2003

"What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions...And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
6/9/2003

"Iraq had a weapons program...Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Comment to Reporters
6/9/2003

"The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Associated Press Interview
6/12/2003

"Those documents were only one piece of evidence in a larger body of evidence suggesting that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa...The issue of Iraq's pursuit of uranium in Africa is supported by multiple sources of intelligence. The other sources of evidence did and do support the president's statement."

- Sean McCormack, National Security Council Spokesman
Statement to press
6/13/2003

"My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
6/18/2003

"I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time...It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Pentagon media briefing
6/24/2003

MS. BLOCK: There were no toxins found in those trailers. SECRETARY POWELL: Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn't been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn't been used yet.

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
All Things Considered, Interview
6/27/2003

"That was the concern we had with Saddam Hussein. Not only did he have weapons -- and we'll uncover not only his weapons but all of his weapons programs -- he never lost the intent to have these kinds of weapons."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
All Things Considered, Interview
6/27/2003

"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003

But the country only becomes batshit crazy when people listen to em.

Fancy that.

:wow:

Thanks Will!

Rp

You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask from that ol' Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim -- Jim Croce

I get the feeling that Ms. Simpson has been told all her life that she's special ("Ayse Kehler, who was Simpson's swim coach in Hawaii, described Simpson as 'a real bright child' and a bookworm who is 'a little different.'... 'Really nice kid, always minded her thing,' Kehler said. 'Always danced to a different drummer.'") and she finally started believing her own P.R.

Doing something like that at a frat party is one thing, but doing it in public..especially an airport that was involved in (do I need to say it?) is something else, entirely.

This is not a "prank", it's a cry for attention..strange attention, to be sure, but attention nontheless. She made herself a target, for reasons unknown to us, and perhaps, even to herself.

The Litebrite stunt was a different thing..it was an "inside joke/publicity stunt", done by people who should have known that some people would get it...and others would not.. The ones who did NOT get it, would be the ones with the power to overreact, and in the end make themselves look silly.. (a double stunt:).)

Be very afraid, they could be out to get you.

I really do understand how some folks want to make America more like Israel, but I would rather that those folks just move to Israel if they like it so much.

There must be sane approaches to reproach this counseled fear by the government and many media outlets.

as we all pat our soldiers on the back here, even though we hate the war, perhaps we should recognize her as a soldier of a different kind. fighting the right war. and willing to be killed or maimed.
i admit here that i have not read the threads about this, or every word in this thread. but as an artist, living in this world today, who drives a vehicle that is a rolling fuck you to big brother, i wish there were more such fools.

Perhaps Star's masterpiece was unintended. Art as controversy; art as commentary; art as a reflection of who we have become.

the you should not wear things that look like bombs to the airport is not new

Nor did it start on 9.11

Now to the bright folks who go... but if they can't tell a bomb from that... having been nose to c-4 I call bullshit on that

She was an idiot

Whether she did this on 9.10 or 9.12 does not matter

Abd that is the problem

Art has a place... and some of it (far more traditional) at the airport.

And if you think I am being authoritarian for actually siding with the authorities on this particular case, so be it.

There's the corporate owned media paranoia driven by government bat-shit lies that HAS gotten lots of people killed, Will. You know this. Then there are people who ignore all that and are connected to 'alternative media' sources.

Marshal McLuhan quoted Whitehead's: "It is the business of the future to be dangerous."

May I recommend you download and listen to the 1967 audio version of McLuhan's book "The Medium is the Massage," from this page: http://www.ubu.com/sound/mcluhan.html Not just a reading of the mostly visual book but an audio experience that was way ahead of its time and addresses, perhaps, your core concerns.

Social reality has now bifurcated (actually 'multi-furcated'). The range of overlap between one media driven reality bubble and the next may be small indeed.

I wish there were more idiots like this woman out there. I think the freakouts "protecting" us from 'terrorism' need a thumb in the eye a lot more regularly than they are getting it. They are way too stuck in an irrational rut, and the only thing that will get them out of it is de-funding. But making fun of them regularly might help.

Note: I am not out there getting arrested thumbing the police state in the eye. I do like it when some yahoo does my good work for me.

She KNEW that security people at airport would worry and she was curious to see what would happen. A clerk asked her what was in her hand, but she didn't answer and walked away. I think she did it on purpose to get attention (15 minute fame).

She's not dumb. She KNEW!

She's lucky though because she could have gotten shot on spot. She used a very poor judgement.