Dear Penninites:

Few things strike fear into the average American’s heart: high cholesterol, Osama bin Laden, gay marriage. Add to the list: pixelated, bird-flipping, Lite-Brite cartoon aliens from cable television shows.

In the five years since 9/11, so-called terrorism experts have repeatedly claimed that the risk of the next terrorist attack is not a matter of whether it will occur, but when. So when 38 mysterious battery-powered light screens displaying the “Mooninite” characters from the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force appeared in Boston, vigilant citizens called the authorities. Highways and public transportation were shut down, a bomb squad blew up one of the objects, and the advertisers responsible were arrested.

Fear-mongering, bomb squads, and an entire city shut down: all in a day’s work. Even if one initially mistakes a cartoon character for the work of a terrorist, Boston authorities kept up their misplaced outrage long after the truth had come out. The advertisers arrested were charged with intent to incite a panic despite their obvious intent to promote a movie. Equal numbers of identical objects were placed in nine cities around the US – only in Boston did the issue come up, and only because of the inanity of the authorities.

Closer to home, paranoia hit even harder. Last week, a Penn law student, suspecting that his next-door Drexel neighbors were spies, emptied his Glock 9mm into the door, shooting off the lock. All the while, one of the Drexel students was hiding in his bedroom. The DP, oddly, played up an ethnic angle: the law student was a Korean-American, the neighbors both Indian-born. The law student’s xenophobic fear that his neighbors were spying on him apparently sparked the incident.

What are we all so afraid of? Lite-Brite terrorism? South-Asian spies? Britney’s vagina? No, friends. We are afraid of nothing more than colorful alerts, sensational headlines, and 24 episodes.  Perhaps the best way to actually fight the terrorist threat is to start acting like independent thinkers who take the time to tell the difference between a cartoon and a bomb before wasting thousands of dollars and minutes neutralizing the “threat.”  Or maybe we all need to start watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force – at least that way we’ll be too busy to make fools of ourselves.

Sincerely,

Shira Bender, Editor in Chief

Isaac Katz, Editor