At the Intersection of Stupidity and Alarmism

First, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTgvCVGxmsI

So... Star Simpson. 19-year-old MIT student. Walks into Logan Airport in Boston wearing a sweatshirt with a circuit board glued onto the front of it. The back of sweatshirt reads "Socket to me Course VI." She goes up to an information desk and asks about a flight. She walks away. The information desk lady thinks the circuit board might be a bomb and she calls the state police who arrest Simpson at gunpoint. "She was lucky," they later comment, "that we didn't shoot her."

A couple of things:

1) Star Simpson. It was, perhaps, not the smartest idea to wear that particular sweatshirt to an airport where one of the September 11th planes took off. That's really the only thing I have to say to Star Simpson, because her only crime in this situation is wearing a sweatshirt with a circuit board on it. Not a sweatshirt with a bomb on it. Not even a sweatshirt with a fake bomb on it. A sweatshirt with something that is in no way a bomb glued to the front. A circuit board is not a bomb. A circuit board is not a bomb. A million times a circuit board is not a bomb. This will be important later.

2) For the second time in a year, the city of Boston has to scramble to assign blame for their own underinformed overreaction (see The Great "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" Debacle of Ought-Seven). It must be embarassing to find out only too late that you've shut down a major airport and held an innocent young woman at gunpoint for no good reason. So, what do you do? You hold that bad reason up in front of the world and say "Isn't this a good reason?"

Quoth Major Scott Pare of the Massachusetts State Police: "I'm shocked and appalled that somebody'd wear this type of device to an airport in this time. We're currently under orange. The threat is there against aviation."

Allow me to break that down and add referents where he has used pronouns or vagueries.

Ahem: "I'm shocked and appalled that [a 19-year-old college student] would wear [a circuit board glued to a sweatshirt] to an airport [in a time when a 19-year-old college student can get arrested for wearing a circuit board]. We're currently under [a terrorist activity designation that is totally arbitrary and which no one seems to understand]. The threat [from people who aren't Star Simpson] is there against aviation."

It's an insidious rhetorical device that I notice more and more these days. You take an authority figure, put him in front of camera and have him gravely rattle off five or six buzz words and phrases, and people believe him because, after all, he is an authority figure and he is standing in front of a camera.

And suddenly it doesn't seem like the Massachusetts State Police arrested a girl who had done nothing wrong.

I just wanted to take a second to point out the fact that the entire CNN news story more or less covers the Mass State Police's efforts to cover their own asses.

3) And don't think that CNN is getting off the hook that easy.

There have been books written about the need for 24-hour cable news networks to sensationalize the news, simply to fill up their cycles. Still, one would hope that CNN might be able to do a little better than to demonize an innocent student. To hear CNN cover the story, you would think that Star Simpson was either a) a moron or b) a terrorist. Or c) both.

From Dan Lothian. "...she had been wearing this sweatshirt -- believe this or not -- she was wearing this sweatshirt to help her stand out at a career fair at MIT where she is an engineering student." [the italics are mine]. Believe this or not? That would suggest that it was somehow unbelievable to think that she would be wearing an outlandish piece of clothing to a career fair. Which is not at all unbelievable.

Carol Costello. "Yeah, that's an understatement [that this is a serious incident]. What kind of punishment should--could she get for this?" One, is it an understatement? I think it's actually a massive overstatement. And if it is a serious incident, it's a serious incident because so many people overreacted to it. And as far as "what kind of punishment should she get for this?" Well... that's really up to you to say, isn't it, Carol?

Also from Carol Costello: "Yeah, I wouldn't think it was very funny if I saw it at an airport." Nothing like a little us vs. themism. On one side: Carol Costello and upstanding, circuit-board-fearing, terrorism-is-not-funny set. On the other: Star Simpson and her liberal, hippie, unpatriotic, disrespectful, circuit-board-wearing friends. So, you tell me... Did you think it was funny? Whose side are you on?

And just listen to the rhetoric throughout. Especially when they get to her website (lest we forget that many middle Americans probably still view the internet as the unpoliced international electronic waters where pedophiles and terrorists freely mingle) They repeatedly refer to her sweatshirt as a "device," a term which immediately brings to mind the home-made bomb. And they describe her website (which chronicles her many inventions, some of which are pretty fanciful and creative) as though it were some sort of terrorist nexus. "There are other electronics here... There's plenty more online here. Instructions on how to make these gadgets. Some of them been viewed thousands of times by people."

Oh dear God. Don't tell me that they saw the rocket skates plans... Please, Carol. Please don't tell me that literally thousands of people had access to the schematics for a box that tells you whether or not Star Simpsons is in her room!

4) It's things like this and the medias reaction to them that makes me think that there is a real chance (however slight) that fascism might someday have a fighting chance in this country. We should be appalled that a girl was arrested who hadn't done anything wrong. Or we should acknowledge that there is an outer limit to our liberty, and that we aren't free to do or say or wear certain things. Or we should admit that people make mistakes, that Star Simpson is perhaps not the most responsible chicken in the coop, or that when people are scared, the cops can get called out to a place where there's no crime. What we shouldn't do is unequivocally damn the innocent one. We shouldn't laugh at her mistake. We shouldn't smile when we discuss how much jail time she might get. We should shake our heads and say, "Well, isn't that just like those kinds of people."

I thought it was that kind of divisiveness and restriction of freedom that we were supposed to be fighting against.