Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens are, to borrow a phrase used by President Bush during the 2000 campaign, MAJOR LEAGUE A**HOLES.
BOSTON -- Two men who authorities say placed electronic advertising devices around the city were released from jail Thursday, apparently amused with the publicity stunt that stirred fears of terrorism and shut down parts of the city.
Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were released on $2,500 cash bond after each pleaded not guilty to placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct for a device found Wednesday at a subway station. They waved and smiled as they greeted people in court.
Outside, they met reporters and television cameras and launched into a nonsensical discussion of hair styles of the 1970s. "What we really want to talk about today — it's kind of important to some people — it's haircuts of the 1970s," Berdovsky said.
But as he walked off, Berdovsky gave a more serious comment.
"We need some time to really sort things out and, you know, figure out our response to this situation in other ways than talking about hair," Berdovsky said. "So if you could just give us some privacy for a little bit. ... I will be trying to make sense of all it real soon."
...Berdovsky, an artist, told The Boston Globe he was hired by a marketing company and said he was "kind of freaked out" by the furor.
"I find it kind of ridiculous that they're making these statements on TV that we must not be safe from terrorism, because they were up there for three weeks and no one noticed. It's pretty commonsensical to look at them and say this is a piece of art and installation," he said.
Fans of the show mocked authorities for what they called an overreaction.
About a dozen fans gathered outside Charlestown District Court on Thursday morning with signs saying "1-31-07 Never Forget" and "Free Peter."
UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Watch.
I am completely disgusted by these two men.
I am completely disgusted by their "prank."
I am completely disgusted by those serving as apologists for Berdovsky and Stevens.
I am completely disgusted by their incredibly irresponsible and dangerous behavior.
I am completely disgusted by those whining about Boston overreacting to the "prank."
I am completely disgusted by those incapable of grasping the nature of the post-9/11 world.
Now should we talk about hair?
24 comments:
please kill yourself...the devices were lite brites with little men giving the finger...for some reason I doubt terrorists would put bright flashing lights on their bombs to make sure people could find them, nor do I think they would add pictures of vulgar little aliens to their devices. Lets complain more about things that are entirely unimportant while ignoring the fact that the city of Boston apparently has an average IQ of 4
Jesus Christ. The irony of this coming from a blog called "Freedom Eden" is nauseating.
placing signs in public places is not in anyway terrorism, it's more like what is called advertising.
If it's not considered terrorism to write the word JESUS really big on a giant bill board for everyone to see, and it's not considered terrorism to place a sign along the side of the road that says "VOTE FOR _____" and it's not considered terrorism to carve "DAN WAS HERE" or "JR LOVES HP" into a bathroom stall. Then by what stretch of the imagination does placing a neon sign equate to terrorism?
Adult swim found it's niche as an underground show, thus it would not be consistent to it's aesthetic to buy billboard space, any more than it's consistent with the anti-consumerist movement to place a million dollar AD on TV.
The whole point of the signs is to make it look like people who watch adult swim are secrete underground revolutionaries who are clever enough to build these signs in their homes out of crude material, underneath the radar of mainstream corporate culture. And they are placed like graffiti in places where only those in the know will notice them, others will ignore what they don't understand, but the secrete elite few will know what the signs mean. Everyone else is meant to simply ignore nonsense signs that confuse them, not flip out and assume they are bombs.
The same as when people who saw the TV show Dallas would graffiti the words "Who shot JR" or how sometimes Christian groups will slip bible verses into baseball games.
If we persecute these men for their signs, why don't we persecute all underground advertising, why now all advertising in general?
Maybe if I leave my free toaster I got when I opened my checking account at the bus stop I should be sent to jail, for leaving a bomb like object in public?
froclown, with all due respect, your arguments are full of gaping holes.
To begin with, you talk about being in thrown in jail for terrorism.
Are Berdovsky and Stevens charged with terrorism?
No.
Also, keep in mind that my post says absolutely nothing about what I consider to be an appropriate punishment, if any, for the two "advertisers." NOTHING. You and others are making illogical leaps.
Furthermore, "underground" advertising isn't the issue at all.
Simple billboards and signs and graffiti don't require an energy source and wires, do they?
I think it's fair for one to argue that Berdovsky and Stevens are guilt-free in the Boston situation. It's an opinion.
I wouldn't worry about them if I were you.
Judging by their comments to reporters, they appear to be enjoying their fifteen minutes that cost Boston in excess of $500,000.
Thank you for a wonderful blog, couldn't agree more!!!
Initally I kinda felt sorry for these two morons...until they OPENED their mouths.
They deserve all the misery they get.
I was searching for Berdovsky and Stevens, trying to learn more about the story when I came across your blog.
Just a Prima facie look at your blog says a lot...
In regards to the Boston scare:
Think about the situation.
Who should be blamed here for this unfortunate event of overt American stupidity and oversensitivity?
Is what Berdovsky and Stevens did really that wrong?
Is there an amendment in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees free speech? Is what prophetic Anti-Federalists feared true about government shifting towards a more totalitarian state in the area of Civil Rights and guaranteed liberties? Are some of the same fears these prophets foresaw applicable to state governments with a unitary system of local government that allows majorities in a state to undermine the minority's guaranteed liberties? Would charging these two (despite all forms of castigation or repugnance one feels for them or even admiration or support) give government even more power over individual rights? Would Massachusetts convicting these of a felony in a way contradict the principles of the 1st? Did there actions DIRECTLY cause the panic?
Please, spare me the 9/11 tautologies, they are completely and totally invalid in this whole situation. Yes. They are. I want you to think real long and hard to try and understand where I'm coming from.
Maybe we should ask who reported these objects that caused Boston officials to make themselves look like imbeciles, as they perpetuate an icon of egotistical anger and insecurity. The same insecurity that causes many to fall back on the known in the face of new thought.
Maybe.
Maybe we should stop revering authority and all their policies so long as it all presides under the facade of "good intentions".
You are possibly an adult. I cannot even vote and such blasphemous provincialism angers me. Not just by reading this trivial blog, but every day encounters with bigotry and useless redundancies. There is good, but then there is also usurping thought with the belief that good dictates true thought.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with being indoctrinated in a certain lifestyle that would lead you to have a repugnance for these two individuals. I am not saying there is anything wrong with possibly admiring these individuals.
I am just trying to point out that the masses are so keen on picking up on the paradigms.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with having some sort of zeal for a specific political party and religious creed that has beck and whim over all the redundancies your thoughts become after such long repetitive models of thinking.
This is in regards to some of the comments I actually read from your blurt of preemptive judgment.
No, I'm just saying, maybe there's more to the situation. Maybe we should stop repeating what sounds good to us even though we don't truly understand what it actually means.
Hell, it may be so that Boston and numerous facets of media and trivial bloggers such as yourself have been duped into an advertising campaign that CANNOT be bought with money.
Despite how the homogeneous mass of carbon copy bloggers, politically correct thinkers, [insert creed]s who continually fall short and believe that they must fall back on the palpable or general consensus, may have responded to this:
Think.
Whatever god one's creed may be: In all it's intangible wisdom, it may likely desire for everyone to stop being satisfied with what they thought they knew and struggle with the uncertainty that so many are in denial of.
All the trite, fallacious castigation that will be repeated and repeated and repeated in regards to this whole situation is going to be the same: What can make it on the air and not displease the mass of people who all generally think the same the same things.
Hmm, well, all the above probably has very little to do with your blog since I didn't read the whole thing. I've just had a lot of frustration culminating and am constantly wondering how people with moderate intelligence can inhibit themselves with predetermined nonsense. Have fun keeping up your blog. Got to love the internet.
Thanks, Jeanne.
I appreciate the balance your remarks bring to the comments left here.
Oh, and "anonymous 11:33 PM, February 05, 2007" -- I don't mind that you left your manifesto after giving just a "Prima facie look" at my blog.
After giving your comment a prima facie glance, I didn't read it.
Peter Berdovsky doesn't deserve American citizenship. He is here on political asylum status. REVOKE IT!
Probably the best idea anyway.
I have no sympathy for Berdovsky. For someone fearing deportation, he certainly has acted like a jerk.
I'm not referring to his part in the "ads." I'm talking about his attitude and how he has behaved afterward.
Should he be deported? I don't know. I don't care.
Post 9/11 world? How do you compare flying a plane into a building with putting lit-up sign of cartoon figures on the sides of buildings? If arresting people out of a misunderstanding and then saying that they deserve what they get is your idea anti-terrorism, then I think you might be on the wrong side. Why don't they take it seriously? Because it IS a joke. They are being charged with INTENTIONALLY inciting panic, which is CLEARLY false. Boston officials need to apologize to them as well as admit that they were a bit overzealous.
In they days of the ancient Greek's there was an incident where the great Goddess, (Our Lady of Discord) Who was not invited to the wedding party, decided to express her displeasure with by carving "to the fairest one" on a golden apple. And placing it on the wedding table as a gift to the bride.
When the three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite discovered the apple, in their vanity they each claimed the apple for themselves.
Paris was called in, He took Helen as his bribe, and the Trojan war followed in suit.
When asked to comment on the war and all the chaos, fear and death she caused, Discord refused to talk about anything not related to merits of eating hot dogs with and without buns.
Thou it is She what done it all, there is not blame at her feet, and the Trojan war is the foundation for the beautiful poetry of Homer as well as the foundation of Rome, etc.
In any effect All hail Discordia! Holy Queen of inner space. Patron Goddess of pranks, Guerrilla ontology, poetic distortions, lymricks, surrealism, meta-corporate Culture-jamming, and all other Chaos resulting from simple seemingly innocuous events.
When we allow fear to prevent us from expressing ourselves through the obscene hand gestures of cartoon characters made from Lite Brite the terrorists have already won.
Forgive me for going off on a tangent here but I would like to have my 'Two-Penneth' also
I think it's a shame that we have become so reactionary in a society where creative expression (albeit Market led), is now actually under threat because we have allowed ourselves to become panicked by the unfamiliar in this media-savvy age. The spread of information should allow us more freedom. Not less.
I'm not suggesting this comes without responsibility, however at the same time maybe the finger of blame should be pointed towards the very same media outlets (and governments) that are consistently driving us towards a state of frenzy, where we allow ourselves to become so blind-sided, as to abandon reason and rationality in favor of Mass Hysteria.
This does not promote a secure world, especially when we need to have clarity in order to navigate these troubled times in which we live.
If this worrying trend continues then maybe the terrorists, (whoever they may be), are probably monitoring these events as they unfold, waiting until our collective consciousness is in such dis-array that we play right into they're hands. More worryingly, do we ourselves run the risk of turning into a police state?
I strongly believe that the Witch-hunt surrounding these two people is bordering on this territory, they may not be charged with Terrorism, but the fact that they are still being charged with Hoax is to my mind ridiculous, given also the fact that the Turner Company put they're hands up to it almost as soon as the story broke.
Maybe Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens comments were flippant, but given the over-reaction to the situation I can understand why.
Right now as I write this, peoples lives are being threatened, but it's not by an innocuous flashing light. Are we now going to start crying "Bomb" over any new lit Street Sign or Billboard? Or maybe we should think twice before we see a plastic bottle? They are also a component of bombs too, but they don't need batteries.
I'm a security person, trained by the military with about 5 different school house courses + pratical experience.
First why are you mad at these two? if they didn't do it, someone else needing money would have.
Second it was an overeaction. We now have to look at rewriting some courses to list things that you need to, yes take seriously, but know when to stop.
Third, Someone (who happens to be a political employee with little experience in dealing in large scale matters) in Boston who is high enough that it matters heard something about batteries and wires and said bomb. When he said that and flipped out, everyone else had to respond in kind. Because this person escalted the situation instead of de-escalting it, that's why we got a panic.
Forth, lets debate with people not say you are stupid for saying your ideas, the fact the people have suggested to kill yourself for having an idea that many others have is quite upsetting.
What a joke! it's highly amusing to see someone get so worked up over their own stupidity and paranoia. Get a grip! Who cares if you are so easily disgusted. Anyone with a bit of common sense can see that its not Stevens and Berdovsky who are responsible for what happened in Boston but rather a whole string of idiots who escalated the situation into such a panic. Do you remember the 'Y2K Bug' that cost companies worldwide several hundred billion dollars damage. Wouldn't we all just love to know which computer geek was responsible for that one! it was me! he he he ;-)
Blame our government that Boston reacted the way it did - not Peter and Sean. It's the Bush administration that has instilled irrational fears in us.
It's nice to see that irreverence and hubris are not dead. I love it when bright young people "tweak" the system - especially when responding to the idiot press corps.
It's too bad that the over reaction to this hoax has resulted in Turner paying fines and the head of the Cartoon Network resigning.
It makes me sick. It makes me afraid for the first amendment.
Berdovsky and Stevens have some very interesting and loyal defenders.
Amusing -- kind of cute in a creepy way.
They are probably being payed to act crazy and make as much media attention fall on them as possible. It's obvious isn't it? There is no better way to bring attention to the movie than to make a national news story. People are saying that this cost Turner hundereds of thousands of dollars, in all, they probably gained quite alot through media attention. I might point out that I saw those signs in New York a long time before the incident, and I think it's laughable to mistake a clear cartoonish character on an LED board as a bomb. You may point out it had "wires" and "batteries", but would the average person be able to see those from the perspective of a car? No, they would see the cartoonish character. America has a problem with paranoia ever since 9/11. Are we completely safe? No. Should we remain vigilant? Yes. But don't sacrifice common sense. On a personal note, I found the antics of the two guys hilarious, and I hope they are aquitted as they should be.
After what happened on 9/11, I think it's completely reasonable to take potential threats seriously.
Of course, common sense shouldn't be tossed out; but the post-9/11 world is a different place.
Common sense is needed to be exercised by all, including advertisers, "artists," and officials.
Please. The Boston Penal code clearly states that one can only be charged with planting a "hoax device" if the intent is to terrorize. Good luck demonstrating that Turner Broadcasting hoped to commit petty terrorism.
Here's some more profundity from Zebbler himself.
http://www.boston.tv/beta2/clips/290973893.html
Does anyone care about them anymore?
I don't.
Once and for all: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE POST 9/11 WORLD. More people die every day due to disease and irrational armed conflict around the world, and you define YOUR "world" based on an event that is trivial in comparison. I feel sorry for you.
"Mary said...
Berdovsky and Stevens have some very interesting and loyal defenders. "
You are tossing aside their arguments.
Ignore the crazies for a second, and look at the rational arguments. Look at the sign. It has no compartment to hold any explosives. It was sitting there for 3 weeks before somebody decided to bring it to Boston's attention. Out of 500,000 dollars, Boston probably needed to spend hhe normal salaries of the police officers who should've just taken them down in half an hour.
check this out:
http://historymike.blogspot.com/2006/04/mario-question-cube-teens-avoid.html
But really, arguing on the internet is pointless.
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