You can argue about and laugh at the response to a cartoon add, but you have to remember what makes guerrilla advertising work. It counts on a select group of people who are already knowledgeable of what’s being advertised seeing it, talking about it amongst themselves, creating a buzz, and eventually the work leaking out to others. Most of all, it depends on most people not knowing what it is at all, and asking about it which can then be answered by people “in the know.â€Â? TBS and their add company can spin it as harmless adds, as they turned out to be. But it’s disingenuous to spin them as something that should have been obvious to the police or fire department. It’s not like they said “TBSâ€Â? and had a 1-800-number on them. They were intended to not look like an obvious advertisement. That’s what makes them “cool” because not just anyone can know what they are just by seeing them.

And it’s also silly for these two guys to be charged with anything more than some sort of defacement or vandalizing charge. Every second they get in front of a camera validates TBS’s actions by increasing the return from their advertising investment.

If Boston really has an issue with these guys, they should stand behind their actions, and pass some laws about advertising in the city that either prevent this from happening again, or gives them more and better teeth to go after the companies responsible the next time.

The normal reaction of bureaucracy to anything is over-reaction; that being the best way to minimize recrimination and lawsuits. This is why schools go into Drug Alert Lockdowns when a student brings a packet of Maalox to school. That’s over-reaction. We have a society full of “zero-tolerance policies” which are designed to take all rational discretion away and force people to over-react.

It has nothing to do with any “climate of fear”, which does not exist outside of the intellectual fever swamps. It is normal operating procedure for a nation full of lawyers and finger-pointers.

Back to Boston: a professional bomb squad investigated the first device and were unable to determine its nature, so they destroyed it. If anybody thinks the bomb squad is stupid, you try telling the difference between a harmless object and a lethal device when the price of being wrong is your life.

Now that we know it was a harmless display of juvenile stupidity and not a terrorist attack, is Boston over-reacting by filing charges? Ask the cops who were deployed (at great civic expense) and had to crawl up to those f–king things wondering if they would blow up and kill them.

The political leaders, on the other hand, have over reacted & arrested the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It is painfully clear that NOBODY planned this as a terrorist hoax. To charge anyone involved of such a crime is a crime in itself. These 2 men are guilty only of doing their jobs. Their bosses were responsible to insure what they did was legal. Why have they not been charged for the crimes they committed – namely, placing ads on public buildings & bridges w/o permission? If Ted Turner knew of it in advance, he should have been the first one handed a subpoena for criminal charges & civil damages.

It is illegal to post anything on public property without permission. These actions have caused the people of Boston a lot of grief. They deserve just compensation from the actual perps, not their employees. Nobody involved deserves to be charged for creating a terrorist hoax. Get a grip, Boston.

I love the fact by the way that the only one’s with the responsibility to “act appropriately” are the “leaders.” Where once we had civic leaders, now we have zoo keepers.

What troubles me is that I can’t determine if Berdovsky and Stevens are renegade Dadaist artists, brilliant marketing tacticians, hapless idiots or corporate stooges.

They’re all three, and that’s just how it is.

Ultimately, the people who overreacted were the city leaders. Public citizens see certain things and they should report what they want to. In 2002, my sister lived next to some Muslims who were often loud in the middle of the night and got freaked out. She called the FBI and reported them. What happened? Nothing. They were just loud.

Long story short, it’s ultimately up to the leaders to determine what’s going on and act appropriately. They didn’t in this case. The blame is on them not the genuises, shills, buffoons.

Done and done.