More on the Boston Bomb Scare

Lindsay Beyerstein, writing at This Modern World, has more info on the bomb scare. There are several counterclaims on what actually happened, but the bottom line seems to be that Interference, Inc., the marketing company behind the campaign, seems to have abandoned the artists, Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky, to bear the brunt of the consequences. Berdovsky says that an exec from Interference asked him to keep quiet about it when he phoned to tell them that the campaign had gotten out of hand. Read Beyerstein's post, because it's pointless for me to repeat it all here.

So we have municipal overreaction seemingly coupled with corporate negligence, at the very least. Looks like everyone gets some of the blame., except the guys who are faced with actually paying the price.

Another post at TMR, this time by Greg Saunders:

With all the loaded language, you’d almost think this guy did something wrong. After all, this “device” was a “hoax” that “forced” the Keystone Cops to chase each other in circles while waving their tiny baseball bats at each other. Throw this guy in jail because we all know this kind of panic isn’t the fault of the people who overract to anything they consider weird.

A big part of the blame rests, obviously, on the media reports, which were at best irresponsible, although the government agencies involved should have been able to rein that in, according to Saunders:

. . . while the panic was partially media-driven, keeping the media from freaking out is an important part of the government response to an emergency situation.