Friday, September 21, 2007

Star Simpson's Play-Doh:
Poltical Statement, Prank,
or Just Plain Stupid?

A MIT sophmore walked into Logan International Airport's terminal this morning, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt. Outside the sweatshirt, she wore a circuit board, with some wires, and putty attached.

Then she walked up to an information booth, and asked about incoming flights.

Circuit board. Wires. Putty. That would get attention anywhere, but Logan is special. Quite a few of the terrorists in the 9/11 attack took off from there.

Authorities at Logan arrested her.

"She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," the top police officer at Logan said. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

The putty turned out to be Play-Doh.

A cable news report gave the punch line to this event. Star Simpson, 19, the Hawaiian MIT sophomore who started the excitement, says that she sees the device as a work of art.

All of which raises two questions:
  1. What was she thinking?!
  2. Does she know about the 9/11 attack, and the war on terror?
Then, there's New York's Columbia University, the ROTC, and a foreign dignitary. But that's for another post.

Most of the information here is from the Berkshire Eagle.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Voting C - Just Plain Stupid on the part of Logan Security. If you look at the photos of the device, it is clearly not an explosive. Boston is quickly gaining a reputation for overblown response to non-threats (cf. the Aqua Teen Hunger Force non-incident).

Here's hoping she fights this on appeal at every step.

Brian H. Gill said...

Maybe. But, if I were flying, I'd rather have security be a bit over-zealous than the reverse.

Consider how embarrassing it would be for someone, if the 'obviously bogus' explosive device blew up later.

And, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Star Simpson drags whoever was doing their job through the courts. She goes to a prominent eastern school, after all.

And yes, I've see the photos. If I had been there, I'd have said there was a good chance that it was some twit of a college student's idea of a joke.

But I'd have been reluctant to risk my life, and the lives of others, on my educated guess.

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.