M Questions Both Madison Avenue and Terrorists

Of my last two posts, one focused on the reprehensible and sometimes ambiguously racist strategies of ad executives and the other focused on terrorist squirrels (which, by the way nonexistent readers, I do not by any circumstances think terrorism is funny. I do however think that squirrels are hilarious). Now a new hybrid of commercialism and terrorism, commerterrorism, is being flouted throughout Buffalo, New York in a way that could only be defined as irresponsible fear mongering.


The new campaign for the Red Cross is meant to shock people into preparing for a terrorist attack. While I, being aware of the boy scout motto of always being prepared, think that this is all fine and dandy, what is not is the level of alarm this could cause. Someone like my mother, who ingest mass media and marketing like a juicy Big Mac, is sure to find this downright terrifying. Upon seeing this Billboard and realizing that she has only a few more years to live, my mother would most likely take immediate and drastic action by quitting her job and beginning to work exclusively on a bomb shelter. This would all be while calling me every five seconds to make sure I wasn't dead.

What's more terrifying is that they don't the oncoming doom somewhat ambiguos in that "You know you should prepare,because anything could happen-people get ran over by buses everyday" kind of way but give a specific date "November 9, 2009."

Why November 9, 2009? So that people can have a few years to get their survival kit in order? To let the fear build up and overflow into mass public riots? To give my mother time to harrass me while building her bomb shelter? Or perhaps, simply, to give the terrorist time to create a plan?

Is it just me or does this seem a tad bit irresponsible?

Photo courtesy of: www.BoingBoing,net