Of #OccupyBoston, Mooninites and #Sinkgate

The Boston Police Department's theft of #OccupyBoston's kitchen sink (sigh... the jokes just write themselves) is really just the latest in police overreaction in a long series of Boston Police are-you-kidding-me? overreactions. My friend put it well when she wrote on Facebook,

"okay, the occupiers probably shouldnt have blocked the police van. but, in their defense, the police PROBABLY SHOULD BE SPENDING THEIR TIME ON SOMETHING OTHER THAN A SINK. jussssst sayin'."

And I'm not even so sure they were wrong to block the van for the limited amount of time that they did. After all, they're living indefinitely protesting there, and dishes need cleaning.

So, how bad are the cops? Be it trying to arm every Tom, Dick and Harry in the force with military grade semi-automatic weapons, under the guise of 'preventing terrorism,' or essentially shutting down Boston because of a cartoon movie viral media campaign, it's clear the old fogies of the Boston Police and the status quo's forces that be just don't get what motivates or entertains anyone with a living pulse who thinks life's worth living.

When you think of it, there really are a lot of similarities between what happened when the Mooninites rocketed our city -- by being hung up on a couple walls to market a movie -- and #OccupyTogether movement itself.

Whether it's people wanting to amuse themselves with entertaining adult cartoons, or creating a positive atmosphere of freedom to fight for our rights to have a slice of the American Dream, it's all about people carving out a place for themselves.

And seemingly every time it happens, the elites of the world miss the 'joke,' metaphorical or otherwise.

So, in that regard, the Boston Police stealing the kitchen sink is emblematic with what's wrong with the city, government and mainstream society at large. It's the silly and serious merging all at once, crossing the poli-pop streams, amounting to something that's laughably stupid and insulting all at the same time.

They call the protesters dirty hippies, but as the protesters gain steam, they strip away their ability to stay clean, hoping normal people watching this stuff on the local news won't know any better.

Meanwhile, the protesters are nonviolent, peaceful and fighting for the rights of every American who's ever known what it's like to worry about putting food on the table, paying rent, finding a job or having adequate (or any) health care. The police are getting spooked by ghosts that just aren't there.

These politicians, corporate powers and police officers doing their dirty work don't respect or understand younger people and those struggling to find their way in this life, and they aren't even trying.

If it doesn't fit in with what's gone on in the past, like having a one day march instead of a long-term assembly, having a job instead of desperately looking for one in the midst of a job crisis for those out of work, or using viral marketing instead of paying millions for expensive ads, the old world not only doesn't understand it, but sees it as a threat and attacks it.

This time, far from attacking some stupid viral marketing campaign, we are the Mooninites -- and we're working with a political, corporate and police establishment that has yet to realize life has past them by.

Idiotic Policy at Boston Police Dept.

Apparently, leaders in the Boston Police force are so worried about terrorist attacks like the ones that happened in Mumbia, India, that they're arming patrol officers with semiautomatic, military-grade weaponry. Talk about the wrong priorities! Better theory? Bizarre leaders want new toys. I say let them retire.

Seriously, people should be fired over this, especially given the fact that it does nothing to help the *actual* terrorism going on in the city right now - the 70-80 people being murdered on the streets every year. Semiautomatic M16s won't stop or solve those murders; they may just prompt gangs to strengthen their arms. What's worked in the past has been getting the police and city to work with all facets of the community in crime prevention -- something the city, from all the sources I've talked to, has gotten away from in recent years. Anyone want to take a bet that all of these M16s would pay for a hefty chunk of whatever it would take to restart some of the programs that are actually effective in reducing the youth violence that's led to so many murders over the past few years?

It's one thing to have a well-prepared swat team, it's another to arm regular police officers and allow this culture of fear to continue to prompt idiotic high-ranking officers to ignore the actual terrorism going on in this city every week in favor of the imaginary scenarios that are about as likely to take place as a pig that flies. Boston has almost no threat of a coordinated attack -- and a couple of M16s won't protect us from one. In London, most of the cops don't even go around with guns -- and it's a city that's dealt with very-real terrorism for decades. Kudos to the two officers who had the courage to leak this critical information.

Update: Maybe they're worried about Mooninites?

Mooninites Admit to Causing Swine Flu

Claim to have brought pig back from homeworld

BOSTON - Ignignokt and Errr, the Mooninites responsible for the near-devastating non-attacks on Boston in 2007, held a press conference today at the base of their starship to claim responsibility for Swine Flu attacks. Parked in the middle of the Massachusetts Turnpike, they gathered press and angry commuters around their space vehicle early Thursday, at 8am, to explain the cause of H1N1 influenza, commonly referred to as the swine flu.

"We released the swine, knowing it would cause a worldwide panic of irrational proportions," Ignignokt said.

"Yeah, so worship us, bitches." Err followed.

The pig was a pale, fleshy color and weighed over a hundred pounds, according to the green and pink pixelated characters. They claim to have released the pig from their world, knowing it posed a potentially minor health risk, according to Ignignokt. "People will get sick and vomit and stay home from work for a few days. It will ruin everything," he said.

"Yeah, yeah, it'll kick them in the ass," his friend explained.

When asked about Egypt, which just went about killing all of their pigs erroneously fearing the swine meat caused swine flu, Ignignokt gave an eerily monotone, sinister laugh.

"The pigs taste good, delicious pork, and now all those Egyptians will have to live without it for a while. Our plot is working," explained Ignignokt.

"Yeah, sucks to be them!" Err added. "I took all that pork and ate it." He later admitted.

They explained just how they infected the pig and got it through the border below.

The Inevitable Craigslist-is-Scary Story

According to the Boston Globe, if you use Craigslist, you may get hacked up into little pieces, served baked, with fine wine. Or something like that. Anyone feel like the Globe should have included a disclaimer? Something akin to, "Note: Craigslist is one of the Globe's biggest competitors in actually making money. They took our lucrative business and put it online, for free. And now the Times is threatening us to close! We fucking hate Craigslist." Am I right, or am I right? In fact, I'm sure newspapers and media across the country are only too happy to shine a light on Craigslist. Editorial pages will soon be demanding congressional hearings, no doubt.

Honestly, I didn't even read the whole story. I didn't need to. A crime took place. The alleged criminal used Craigslist. He could have used the phone book. He could have staked out random houses on a nice, suburban street -- picking whichever one had no one home, or had only a single woman. He could have went to the mall, picked the nice old lady walking to the nicest whale-boat caddy in the parking lot and mugged her. These are things that happen every day, we just don't read about how people should be wary of staying home or going to the mall.

Like all things in life, people should try to be aware. Meeting up with strangers for sex is always going to have a slightly dangerous element to it, to say the least. But, then again, so could going to the Post Office. It's always a good idea to meet people in public places, whether it's for sex or to meet some online friend for the first time. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with a safety guarantee, so it's important to be smart about things. However, people shouldn't buy into the culture of fear pushed on us by the media. It's simply a way to rope us in to buy more papers and sell more ads, not an actual representation of reality. So, don't be afraid to use craigslist, whether it's to sell your old couch or for dirtier deeds, just be smart about it. Crimes were being committed when these ads were printed in newspapers, $50 bucks for 3 lines, now it's just happening online, for free, with fewer code words -- and the old guard's still trying to make what it can off it.

Update: Reading further in. Coakley and Zollman's quotes remind me of Boston's history with Mooninite attacks. Lock your doors! Get your ducktape! Duck and cover!

An Open Letter to the MBTA

Dear MBTA,

Did I call it, or what? Today's story about the MIT students makes the MBTA look like a bunch of old fogies who have absolutely no understanding of this most recent generation, anything technical or even how to deal with public relations. As I said in my original blog, there wasn't a worse way possible that the MBTA could have reacted to these students, who were offering their services for free - this pitted Davids (the MIT students) versus the goliaths (the entire MBTA). The rest of the country got their popcorn and watched.

It's the second major time that a large Massachusetts agency has essentially seen an attack of the Mooninites. It's another bad-press piece among a sea of recent bad press, all amounting to the MBTA executives - the same ones getting a 9% raise - looking like a bunch of hacks. Not good, especially for MBTA employee wallets.

Clearly, the MBTA needs to make some major changes. First thing's first: hire someone under the age of 50 to do your public relations (or at least make sure they have a few teenaged kids). Don't hire a hack; hire someone who gets the new media, the internet, blogs and won't make knee-jerk reactions. Secondly, don't sue MIT students, pretty much under any circumstances. It just makes you look bad, especially to the people who actually use the MBTA (among them plenty of MIT students).

Most importantly, there are problems at the MBTA. They need to be fixed. Believe it or not - and this is why all these stories look so bad for the MBTA - these students from MIT were actually trying to help you. You should have at least paid them lip service, but it would have even been better if you took them up on their offer and investigated the problems they brought up. Furthermore, if you're worried about free rides on the MBTA, maybe you all should worry about the thousands of people who are getting free rides every week - because current policies, especially on the Green Line, don't prevent people from just walking on the trains.

The MBTA has bigger problems to worry about than Mooninites - I mean MIT students. It should focus on those problems. It should focus on staying afloat, financially. It should focus on making the best of these high gas prices and the tens of thousands of new commuters they're bringing. It should focus on how service can be expanded. Suing MIT students and sending the FBI after them is the last thing the MBTA should be doing, or focusing on. I hope the MBTA's course can be corrected soon, otherwise all the people who are starting to taking the T now will stop, whether gas prices go back down or not. Sadly, there's not much that's been done at the MBTA that inspires any confidence whatsoever that the MBTA can become a modern state agency that can cope with being in today's world.

Wilkerson Bailed on Today's LeftAhead Podcast

We were expecting Senator Wilkerson on today's LeftAhead Podcast, but she bailed on us with a don't-call-us, we'll-call-you promise of a rescheduling. Mike is a lot less cynical than I am, and is willing to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt that she was just too busy only a few days after promising to join our show. Either way, I (read: not everyone on the show) find it inexcusable.

We also chatted about the newest attack of the Mooninites: the MBTA showing that they're only the latest state agency to completely miss the boat in the age of the internet and tech savvy newer generations. Instead of swimming with the current, they tried to stop it - and were severely beaten in the process, turning this into a national story about how the T is clamping down on the freedom of speech. Suffice it to say, this is bad press and a bad mistake on the T's part.

It's a mistake that could get worse, as word gets out that the students were essentially offering the MBTA free and private consulting on how to fix their problems. Hopefully, Massachusetts state agencies will start to think about how to react to perceived problems with today's young adults and various subcultures in the Age of the Internet, because there's clearly systemic problems and the attack of the Mooninites are plaguing Massachusetts seemingly everywhere.

The Mooninites Strike Again!

Another state agency fails to comprehend how to operate in the age of the internet and technologically-savvy new generations.

On Friday, the MBTA sued MIT and three MIT students, claiming that the students planned to present a paper at the DEFCON hacker's conference explaining how to circumvent the security on the T's Charlie Cards and thus create counterfeit cards. At a hearing held on Saturday (!), Judge Douglas Woodlock of the U.S. District Court in Boston granted the T a temporary restraining order forbidding the students to provide any information that would assist someone else to circumvent the T's security system.

Here was my main comment in the thread - and I'm sticking to it.

The MBTA's Choices

In regards to the publicity of these 'security' problems.

1. MIT kids make presentation to some hacker convention no one pays attention to. Analysis: Not interesting, not covered by the media, almost know one reads the kids' report.

2. MBTA takes kids to court. Analysis: A little bit more interesting, but still not a story. More people will read report.

3. MBTA tries to prevent kids from having the freedom of speech, paints them out to be hackers who'd give free Charlie Cards to everyone, ignores the fact that these kids were actually trying to help eliminate the system's vulnerabilities - making this look like Boston's newest attack of the Mooninites. Analysis: The story's now far more interesting, with plenty of intrigue for everyone. Newspapers will cover it - potential to grow into major story. Suddenly, everyone wants to read report on how to bust a Charlie Card. The very nature of today's internet means this report will be widely available due to the MBTA's incompetence.

Good job, MBTA! Seriously, though, can we have one state agency that's prepared to deal with today's internet and younger generations in ways that actually, well, make sense? I'd be happy to host some sort of a conference to train them... my rules for success for the state's agencies will mainly be built around the primary rule in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: don't panic.

Note to readers: Mooninites is from now on my term for whenever a Massachusetts State Agency acts with ineptitude in dealing with either internet technology, today's youngest generations, or completely missing things that are wildly popular in various subcultures. Given the fact that these stories are happening every few months, it looks to be a growing tag.

It's Not a "Hoax"

Or a "suspicious package" or anything the media keeps blabbing on about.

It wasn't even a package at all. It was a Mooninite. It was glowing, florescent lights.

It wasn't a hoax - a hoax would require malicious intent. Certainly, we can all agree here that none of this was malicious. Certainly, Time Warner didn't intend for any of this to happen.

Wherever the blame belongs - and there's plenty of room for debate there - let's keep this discourse grounded in reality. Otherwise, the discussion is tainted.

The Terrorists Have Already Won

When Mooninites from a stupid cartoon can turn the entire city of Boston into one gigantic gridlock, you know the terrorists already won. That the ghosts from five and a half years ago can come alive in the form of florescent lights and a small marketing campaign is... to put it mildly... despicable. Some people would say, "it's better to be safe than sorry." Normally, I'd agree with you. However, today's example took it to the extremes. What's next? Should we close down the entire subway system because someone forgot to throw out their box of munchkins?

A lot of people are pissed - they had to wait in hours of traffic, so who could blame them? However, the profanity, cusses and attacks directed at Ted Turner and his company over at Blue Mass Group remind me of the song Flagpole Sitta: Paranoia, paranoia - everybody's comin' to get you.

So traffic was at a standstill in Boston for hours - annoying, sure, and someone should have to pay for that annoyance. However, target the people at fault: the people who are supposedly keeping us safe. Clearly, they probably couldn't tell a bomb from a popsickle. Does anyone have a shred of confidence in Boston's anti-terror capabilities if it takes them three weeks to find a florescent light bulb?

Without having any expertise in explosives, anti-terrorism or anything of the like, I can come up with some easy, useful guidelines for cops to use in the future. It's only sad that our bomb squad doesn't have such an ability to employ logic.

1. Terrorist attacks aren't generally something terrorists want to market, like Adult Swim, so they're probably not going to leave a bomb at one location for three weeks in plain site - with their middle finger sticking up at passersby.

2. They're going to hide the bomb as best as possible - and set it off as soon as possible - just like on 9/11. There was no billboard saying that was coming, just an equally flawed CIA/NSA that couldn't sniff it out beforehand.

3. You don't need to shut down the entire infrastructure of this state every time
something weird happens. Send someone out to initially investigate the situation next time, please.

4. Back off. 'Live free or die,' isn't exactly easy. If something as small as a few florescent bulbs can destroy anyone's freedom, even for the duration of a long afternoon commute, then we have some real problems - and it's not the terrorists.

Clearly, the terrorists have already won this war. We need to regroup, regain our composure and lose this irrational fear that's eating this country from the inside. It's not too late to fix things, but a whole new strategy must be developed if America is going to remain a free state.