A week ago, I wrote a piece titled “The Times They’ve A’changed,” not realizing how providential it was. Based on public reaction, The hottest thing going last week was not the Iraq war, or the Scooter Libby trial, or  Lindsey Lohan’s mockery of rehab, or the cruel and unusual manner in which the “American Idol” entrants  are treated, or the Brittany Spears/Kevin Federline schmetlach, or any other scandalous event you might conjure up. It was the bomb scare in Boston. 

The illuminated blinking foot long dolls, wired up to a circuit board, and well known to anyone under 30, were meant to promote a Turner Broadcasting TV show called,” Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Planted by a guerrilla promotion outfit at bridges and other highly visible locations during rush hour, the stunt put Boston on the highest alert since Paul Revere. 

The promotion was sprung on the public in nine other cities without incident. The Boston over-reaction, however, is understandable. It was the launching pad of the planes that reduced the World Trade Center to rubble. This past week, Boston trembled with post traumatic schlock.  

Yet, it shouldn’t have happened. 

I sincerely wonder: Why didn’t someone in the media know this was a shtick? Maybe, not the major talkers, ignorant of  youth-oriented TV, but a bright ambitious young intern, ensconced somewhere among the various staffs, who possibly might have  blurted out, “They aren’t bombs. They’re promotional dolls.”  

A knowledgeable young 18-34 demo morning jock might have actually formed a small group and gone to collect one and exposed  it as a hoax. He could have saved the city a lot of  disruption, $750,000 in needless expenses, and vaulted himself  into the Big League. It’s called “Three Dimensional Radio,” More on that next week. 

In 1960, the cleverest promotional TV campaign I know of happened in Cleveland. One morning, hundreds  of Clevelanders awakened to find pink plastic flamingos standing in their front lawns. Then, the next morning, hundreds more Clevelanders went outside to  discover these same delicate pink creatures had migrated to their lawns. The Flamingo Flim Flam  went on for a week. 

Cleveland was abuzz with widespread TV and radio coverage of the Mystery of the Pink Flamingos. Then, the mystery was solved. It was the prelude to a hilarious new  local TV show featuring Ernie Anderson, later the “Looove Boat” announcer.. For three years Ernie sent the city into gales of laughter at the antics of his comic character “Ghoulardi,” before he took off for Hollywood to conquer that city as one of  the greatest announcers ever. It would not have occurred to anyone in 1960 that the  pink plastic flamingoes were explosive.  

Yes, times have changed……….

Scenario:  Billy breaks a window in his dad’s car and his dad gives him a whipping.

1956 -  Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes on  to become a successful  

           businessman.

2007 -  Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to

             foster care and joins a gang. Billy’s sister is told by a

             state psychologist that she “remembers” being abused as a

             child by the dad who goes to state prison. Billy’s mom

             has an affair with the psychologist. 

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his

                knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary, who hugs

                him to comfort him. 

1956 -      In a short time Johnny feels better and goes on playing. 

2007 -      Mary is accused of questionable behavior and loses her job.

Many in Talk Radio could have handled it more knowledgeably when newly elected Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, insisted on taking his Oath of Allegiance on a Koran. 

There was a predictable uproar in the talk media, but Ellison rationalized his use of the Koran by pointing out that no less than Thomas Jefferson had owned a Koran, and that  “If a visionary like Jefferson, saw fit to honor the Koran, why shouldn’t they? The media and Congress caved. The Koran was used. 

Jefferson owned a Koran, but not in the way Ellison framed it. Jefferson studied it, because he wanted to understand everything he could about the Islamic pirates off the Barbary coast states of Morocco, Tripoli, Algeria, and Tunisia. They were  religious fanatics who, over the centuries, had enslaved or massacred millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans captured from merchant ships off the Barbary coast. Boys as young as nine and ten were mutilated to create eunuchs. Older captives were killed and young women enslaved. 

During John Adams’ term as president, the U.S. paid millions of dollar in tribute to the Islamist warlord, the Dey of Algiers.  

In 1786, before he became president, Jefferson , then Ambassador to France, met face to face with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey of Algiers’s ambassador to Britain, to negotiate a peace treaty with the Muslims.  

He demanded to know why they held so much hostility toward the Americans who had never been their enemies. The ambassador is said to have replied that Islam was founded on the Laws of The  Prophet, that it was written in their Koran that all nations who should not acknowledge Islam’s authority were sinners, and that it was their right and duty to make war on them and to kill or make slaves of them. That any Muslim who died in battle killing infidels was sure to go to Paradise. 

Jefferson objected to buckling under to the Muslims, and when he became president, he appeared before Congress and made his historically famous speech declaring that we were going to spend “millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,”  In short, no more protection money to these thugs.  

He deployed America’s best warships, including the legendary “Constitution” to the Barbary coast, which wiped out the pirate ships. 

In that same era, the Marines landed and marched across the desert from Egypt to Tripoli where they crushed the Islamists and freed American hostages. From this shining event, we get the Marine hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli. We will fight our country’s battles on the land as on the sea.”* 

A Quickie Quiz: When the Congressman Keith Ellison told us he was going to use the Koran for his Congressional Oath and invoked Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of the Koran as his rationale…..

1. How many radio talkers protested simply because he was using a Koran?
2. How many told their listeners why Jefferson owned a Koran.

Next week:  Three Dimensional Talk Radio. 

*For a more complete account of Thomas Jefferson’s intricate war with the Muslim pirates,  read Christopher  Hitchens’ new book, “Thomas Jefferson, Author of America.”  Pages 130-135.