For Glenn

I hate to break in on our topic of discussion this week (and break my long-standing tradition of my blog post titles), but I had to post a few things specifically with Glenn in mind to read (though everyone should read them): Read these three articles about your favorite show, 24. I thought you'd find them interesting.

I now return you to our regularly scheduled topic.

The head of Cartoon Network resigns!

The head of the Cartoon Network resigned Friday after a marketing stunt that caused a security scare in Boston. Blinking electronic devices had been planted around Boston to promote Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but when authorities got a series of 911 calls about the suspicious devices on Jan. 31, they called out the bomb squads and shut down bridges and highways for fear they could be explosives. A few hours later, Cartoon Network's corporate parent acknowledged it was part of a marketing move.

The announcement of Jim Samples resignation was made in an internal memo sent to Cartoon Network staff members. In the statement, Samples said he regrets what had happened. "It's my hope that my decision allows us to put this chapter behind us and get back to our mission of delivering unrivaled original animated entertainment for consumers of all ages," Samples said. He said he felt "compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch." [article]

Why The Terrorists Have Already Won

I always feel like the end of the week is the worst time for me to post. I'm exhausted, and everybody has already said everything about the topics. Anyway, I decided to talk about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force thing, in a sense, because I like that show. Juice! (Anybody see that episode?) Also, I don't know anything about the constitution, and pretty much agree with Nick that while I would like to see it periodically amended, I would pretty much not want to see it amended in this political climate.

Anyway, I thought I'd try to compile the ten reasons I think the terrorists have already won, apart from the fact that a cartoon advertising campaign now plummets a city into trembling fear. I guess that's a pretty big reason.

10 - 99% of nation's bumper stickers now tied up in patriotism industry, sending Honor Student Beating Up industry into disrepair.

9 - Nation won't admit World Trade Center starring Nicholas Cage is a piece of crap, because they are worried they will be called anti-american and killed by a barage of french new wave dvds launched at their skulls.

8 - They're counting cards.

7 - Somebody might say something about the logistics of fighting a faceless, nationless enemy, but really I think it boils down to the existence of that MTV show "My Super Sweet Sixteen." I know I pretty much gave up on America the first time I saw that. Man, those dumb rich people! In every episode, I just want the camerman to walk on screen and punch those girls in the fucking eyeball. Regular people do not have the Black Eye Peas play at their birthday, except through the tape deck. While they eat cake by themselves and watch Star Trek. And maybe cry a little bit.

6 - Took tips from those who won the drug war. That is, meth heads. Therefore, all the terrorists are in redneck basements, the last place the government would ever think to look. After all, isn't the rebel flag more patriotic than the regular stars and bars? In a twisted sort of way?

5 - Crash won best picture last year. I can't prove it, but I'm sure the terrorists had something to do with that. Did I ever tell you guys I hate that fucking movie?

4 - *THIS REASON DELETED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY*

3 - Endless, endless television specials explaining why we're the greatest generation now that we've had a pearl harbor of our own.

2 - Magic. Let's pump another trillion dollars into fighting them!

1 - The name "Terrorists" is much cooler than "United States." What a boring name. "What shall we call our country? We're a bunch of states, and we're united. Hmmm." Maybe if we change our name to "Indestructibleland" or "Youdon'twanttofuckwiththisopia" then we'd start to get the upper hand. Just a thought. You know, New South Glennshaheenmark is free.



Well, those weren't as funny as I would have liked. It's late!

Pimp Your Bomb

Is this topic to get back at us for last week's?

Just kidding - kinda. You know I always think that I'm interested and somewhat up on politics until I talk to you Nick, where I discover I know nothing. I'm not quite sure where to begin this blog - you talked about a lot of stuff.

I suppose that yes, the Constitution does bear some scrutiny. Our discussion on gun control, and consequently the right to bear arms, is a perfect example. Does the original meaning of that amendment still stand? Or should we clarify it? Or do we just pass a bunch of laws?

I disagree with you however about the Senate. We have the House of Representatives if you want representation by population. You argue that Wyoming and North Dakota don't take into consideration or could block laws concerning the needs/interests of California. However, if California were to have representation by population, who's to say they wouldn't block laws concerning the needs/interests of Wyoming and North Dakota? That's why we have the two houses - to make sure there's fair representation both ways. I'm not confusing what you were saying am I?

As far as midnight add-ons, while I don't think it's fair, the senators and house members can vote no if they don't like what's been added on. On the other hand, sometimes you have to compromise to get what you want. I'm sure not all of these last minute tack-ons are part of nefarious plots, so I'd be dubious to restrict them if some good has come out of them.

On the point of electoral colleges - again, ambivalent. If we did away with them and only had popular vote, well Al Gore would have been elected in 2000. (But then would he have written and filmed An Inconvenient Truth ?) However have there been any good presidents elected by the electoral college and not the popular vote? I suppose I could look that up - here's a link in fact.

The ATHF bomb scare in Boston is ridiculous. Jen said she saw it in New York, and one could argue that they would have more reason to freak out than anyone. I mean seriously, is that the new thing to do? Pimp Your Bomb. Why have a normal bomb with ugly wires, when you can pimp it out with an glowing obscure cartoon character? Osama Bin Laden would come to the cave of an unsuspecting Al-Qaeda member - "Yo, this bomb is whack! We're gonna Pimp Your Bomb, son!". A team of specialists meets and discusses the ways to trick it out. Huge LCD TVs, phat sound system - the works. MTV is probably trying to buy the rights as we speak.

I think it would defeat the purpose. If I were a terrorist, and I wanted to actually do damage, the last thing I would want to do would be to draw attention to the bomb. I guess if you were only a half-hearted terrorist, you would do such a thing with the hopes that your plot would be foiled.

I actually hadn't heard about it until you brought it up, Nick. I don't recall seeing on nytimes.com, but sometimes I just skim through the headlines. It was a stupid ad campaign. I mean, if the Boston emergency services hadn't freaked out, would anyone who didn't already watch the show have gotten the point? But that wasn't the case, and now the show has gotten more press than they could hope for. Congratulations to those PR people.

The terrorists are winning! (Or is it the Mooninites?)

You'd think that as a PolySci major I'd be all over this constitution debate... but, um... honestly, I'm gonna go with Aqua Teen Hunger Force. See, yesterday morning I sat at my computer eating breakfast and reading through Nick's post about the Constitution, formulating my responses as I went along... and then suddenly I was thrown off. This was the sentence that did it: However, this uproar over the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "guerrilla advertising" campaign is a huge black mark. Huh? See, I live overseas. I get my news from my customized Google News homepage, which I've set up to be pretty focused on international affairs, specifically those pertaining to Russia and Korea. While I do know what Aqua Teen Hunger Force is (courtesy of my most recent ex), the rest of that sentence - indeed the rest of the paragraph - made little sense to me. So of course, I had to google it and find out what the hell our buddy Nick was going on about.

For those of you who, like me, were clueless as to this whole nonsense, let me give you the run-down. The Adult Swim folks over at Cartoon Network hired a marketing agency, who in turn hired two dudes in their twenties to do some "guerrilla advertising" - neon, glowy thingies in the shape of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force character Ignignokt (a Mooninite - as in he lives on the Moon) were placed all over a whole bunch of cities, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. The idea was that people would see these random Ignignokt images and think, "Hey, I wanna go watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force." Or something. I can't imagine that in a sensible society the proliferation of this visually unappealing Mooninite would have done much to boost ratings. But apparently some of us no longer live in a sensible society.

One of the devices that shut down Boston

While Ignignokt popped up all over the place, the Bostonians were the ones to panic, frantically calling 911, while the local police force all but shut the city down. Apparently, the mayor of Boston said, "It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme." Well, mayor, the terrorists have just won. He's essentially saying that through September 10, 2001 this form of advertising would have been acceptable. Annoying and unsightly, perhaps, but acceptable. He's admitted that because of 9/11 he and the residents of the city now automatically view glowing cartoon characters as threats.

You can't let your lives be ruled by fear, people.

As an aside, this has turned into a marketing coup for Cartoon Network, even with the two million dollar fine Turner Broadcasting has agreed to pay:

In one sweeping and inexpensive maneuver, Aqua Teen Hunger Force jumped to the top of search engines, blogs and news aggregators, in addition to garnering coverage from just about every major media source. Millions of people, who probably thought Adult Swim meant skinny dipping, may now tune into the Cartoon Network just to see what all the fuss is about. Compared to the estimated $2.6 million it will cost for thirty seconds of publicity during Sunday's Super Bowl, this phony bomb scare certainly got a lot more bang for the buck! [article here]

This Is What Happens, Larry

(Updated)

I'm going to write about two things that I think are interesting, since I like to give some different "topics" that we could all write about. The first one is the United States Constitution.

Most people in this country hold the Constitution in highest esteem and revile it, many to the point of thinking that the Constitution is more or less perfect in every way. I have to confess to feeling this way much of the time, being a political junkie and a public affairs student. But upon scrutiny, there are several things that are undemocratic about our Constitution. Thomas Jefferson proposed that the Constitution should be scrutinized in a Constitutional Convention as often as every twenty years. But since that convention in 1787, the Constitution has not not been subject to such scrutiny (at least not by the American people; one could argue that the handful of amendments to the Constitution and the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Constitution could be a sort of scrutiny). So the question is this: Should the Constitution be subject to a new Constitutional Convention, with the goal of, at the very least, subjecting it to serious scrutiny and even possibly changing some things? And if so, what things do you think could use evaluation? I have a few ideas.

One of the things I am most interested in would be the apportionment of the Senate. The Senate is a decidedly undemocratic institution. In the news, we hear quite often about people being upset with Congress for adding things to bill at the 11th hour and many times in ways that avoid scrutiny and debate; however, due to the nature of the Senate, sometimes this is necessary, and I, for one, would not advocate passing any sort of bill restricting this sort of behavior. The reason being, the way the Senate is apportioned, people in a state like Wyoming, with a population of 515,004, and a state like North Dakota, with a population of 642,200, have as much power in the Senate as a state like California, with a population of 33,871,648 - and, obviously, things that a state like California, with it's large urban areas and population, would need, can get blocked by states like Wyoming or North Dakota, who have vastly different interests and needs that California. Which is why it becomes necessary for a state like California to attach things in the dark of night, otherwise many things just wouldn't get passed. Obviously the Senate apportionment was set for a reason, as part of the Connecticut Compromise, and otherwise the Constitution might not have ever passed the Convention, let alone get ratified; however, chattel slavery was also a compromise in the Constitution, because had the Founders included language harsh to slavery, the Constitution wouldn't have stood a chance. So possibly we could take a look at Senate apportionment.

Some other ones would be: Lifetime tenure for Supreme Court Justices. Does it make sense that Supreme Court Justices are given life tenure, and remain on the bench no matter how old they get, failing health, etc. However, it would fuck up the Supreme Court should if we changed things in certain ways; SCOTUS nominees already get politicized during their Senate confirmation hearings, so we obviously wouldn't want to make it any more political. But should we impose some sort of forced retirement age? Would that be fair, given that some people at 80 and even 90 are still sharp and lucid? Or should we make it a fixed period of time, say, 10 years? 20 years? The Supreme Court is one of the major reasons to vote for a President, or at the very least a Congress, that is friendly to your beliefs. Anyone that Bush, for example, puts on the bench will be legislating long, long after Bush is gone.

How about abolishing the electoral college? Do we really need that anymore? And what about making it easier to amend the Constitution? (Do you really see, in our current political climate, and using our current framework, any amendment EVER passing? I don't.) How about constituting some sort of vote of "no confidence" for our chief executive? As it stands now, there's no chance of impeaching someone like Bush, who I think most of us here on this blog would agree is incompetent, and I would personally argue is the President MOST deserving of impeachment; but Bush has something like 700 days or more left in office, and we just have to wait him out- as a lame duck, who knows what kind of damage he and Cheney will cause. Some might argue that we should do away with presidential term limits- if the electorate wants, for example, Bill Clinton to be elected again, why shouldn't we get it? (Not saying that I personally would want that, that's just an example.) I'm sure you all can come up with other things. Or, maybe you think that, with our current political climate, that the Constitution shouldn't be messed with; it might come out of a new Convention much, much worse.

Now, I'm not saying that I personally advocate these things; for example, I wouldn't be convinced we should get rid of term limits; I might not mind Bill Clinton running again, but I sure as hell wouldn't want the chance of a third term for Bush. And there's strong arguments for and against all of these things, and I haven't done a shitload of research on all of this (electoral college, for example).

The second thing I wanted to mention was this bullshit last week in Boston. Now, I have a bias towards Boston; I'm planning on moving there next year, I love New England and hold that area in high esteem, being the birthplace of America, not to mention being a liberal haven. However, this uproar over the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "guerrilla advertising" campaign is a huge black mark. These ads were places in cities all over, in places like Texas, and no one gave a shit. Now, someone supposedly saw this on an overpass and wanted it checked out, and I think that is appropriate; everything should always be checked out and caution should always be taken. But these things were so obviously not bombs. And then Boston officials shut the entire city down, crippling its highways and train systems, and then had these two poor kids arrested and held big angry press conferences; this was obviously to cover their asses, since they looked like buffoons getting so upset about cartoon advertising. So one question would be, do you agree? Or do you think that their response was warranted? I would say that maybe these guys were wrong for putting these things up, and maybe should have alerted Boston officials firsthand. However, these things were little plastic things with lite-brite lights on them. So maybe the most these guys could be charged with would be the equivalent of illegal flyering (if there is such a thing). But the main thing I'd like to discuss is: Do you think that this reaction, beyond just being a sort-of faux outrage brought on by the Boston officials embarrassment, is a reaction to the kind of relentless fearmongering that has been going on in our society? With our current President and his administration pushing fear on us, as well as our news shows, TV shows like 24 which are held up as being "realistic," etc., is it any wonder that people freak out and shut an entire city down? What could we do about this, and do you see it getting better or worse in the future?

Update: This Boston Herald article shows some proof that the guys that planted these light boards were actually watching and filming the Boston police and officials response; surveillance video shows them on the scene with a video camera. This would seem to show that these guys had some expectation of a response, or at the very least were getting some enjoyment out of the frenzied and fearful reaction, which would seem to change the idea that these guys were totally innocent and unaware of what might happen as a result of these things being placed around the city. One op-ed writer has also pointed out that Boston might have more of an excuse for their overblown reaction when compared to the other several major cities these ads were placed in, because of Boston's link to 9/11. Does this new information change in any way your opinion of what happened?