Letters to the Editor
speeder
Published Letters: 125 Editor's Choice: 11
-
PD Hubris/Media cowardice
[Read the article: Is Star Simpson's "fake bomb" just an art jacket?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For whatever reason, this sort of thng enrages me even more than most of the recent incidents where the police make dubious arrests, and while I am not sure exactly what it is, I think it may be a combination of the following things.
1) The inability of the police to simply say, "Oh, I guess that wasn't a bomb."
I get it, post 9/11, people are jumpy (Never mind the fact that the current leadershiptries to make us more jumpy) but people get scared for irrational reasons, so the police are called and the detain the woman. Why is it not possible for the police to simple asses the situation, realize there was no threat, or intent to create a disturbance and let the woman go. Why can't the police realize that sometimes misunderstandings happen? A girl wore a silly jacket, an adult didn't understand that kids sometimes wear circuit boards and cunfusion set in. Why must we always feel the need to "Hold someone responsible" if there is the slightest disturbance.
2)The utter cowardice of the media to report what actually happened. There was no "fake bomb" there was an LED board which someone mistook for a bomb, how can people not understand the difference? nad why won't the media call the authorities on this, instead of being complicit in their spin and portraying this woman as some sort of "performance artist/terrorist." The exact same thing happened with the infamous ATHF incident.
3) The cowardice of organizations who should support the people arrested. Much like TW with the ATHS incident, MIT has completely wussed out, calling Ms Simpson's actions "reckless." A university should uphold the concept of In loco parentis, they should have acted to protect one of their students. MIT's counsel should have met Ms Simpson before she was even arraigned.
4) The bafffling reaction of people who seem to think that she should have been shot. I have seen this all over the internet, people thinking that simply because this woman made a disturbance she deserves to die. What sort of authoritarian world do people want to live in.
5) People seeming to think that anyone who does something that is not within a certain standard must have a "reason" for doing it. People are saying things like, "Why did she have play do in her hand?" Well, why not? Play doh is fun. It smells good and salty and kids like it. And a nineteen year old is still in many ways a kid. They do random silly stuff for no reason ohter than it amusses them. When I was that age I would run around town blowing bubles everywhere. Other kids play with playdoh. Why does it need to be justified?
6) Finally, the line about how "she was compliant and there fore she is lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue." If I was her defense attorney I would have said "the city of Boston is lucky she isn't in the morgue, because if she was instead of being here at arraignment, I would be over in civil court filing a multi million dollar wrongful death suit on behalf of her parents.
Like I said, this whole thing jsut pisses me off.
I'm not really mad at the first person who thought the LED light was a bomb, I'm not even mad at the cops for initially reacting as if there was a real threat (as they were probably called in and told there was simply a "possible bomb." But everything after that, the blame, the spin, the judgement - I simply do not understand.
-
@Keith
[Read the article: Is Star Simpson's "fake bomb" just an art jacket?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The words "fake bomb" implies a device that has been intentionally designed to look like a bomb. Simply because something can be mistaken for a bomb, does not mean it was a fake bomb. By posting a headline saying a woman was arrested at Logan for wearing a fake bomb, implies a woman walked into the airport wearing something she knowingly thought could be percieved as a bomb, ie there was an intent, either to terrorize, make a point etc etc.
But in this case she was wearing something that was mistaken for a bomb. Not the same thing. I understand that from the point of view of security the intial reaction (detain and asses) would be identical. But once it becomes clear that the device was not intedned to be a bomb or fake bomb, to continue to report it as such substantially clouds the veracity of the report.
Yes, it is a semantic difference, but semantics cloud our perceptions, and the media's complicity makes people much less likely to question the particulars of the case.
-
@maxmil22
[Read the article: Is Star Simpson's "fake bomb" just an art jacket?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"And if she isn’t made an example of, we’ll just see more idiotic pranksters trying to push the limits even farther."
Please post evidence that she was attempting to pull a prank.
-
@Pryian
[Read the article: Is Star Simpson's "fake bomb" just an art jacket?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Amtrak?