notforprophet

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All Americans must collectively breathe a sigh of relief that the threat of continuous, lambasting, mortal domestic terror since 9-11 hasn’t substantiated itself. For nearly a year, besides a few limited “biological terror” concerns, our infrastructure, and more importantly, our very lives have not been successfully assailed. This respite is, of course, no assurance at all against future assaults. But still we mustn’t discount our pacific blessings, whether achieved by our own vigilance or terror’s inabilities, in this matter either.

Yet there seems to be a niche of “terror-journalism” that, due to this domestic abeyance, is in danger of withering through the loss of this dynamic. You see, terrorists themselves can be patient if necessary and stealthily stretch a jihad, like a Crusade, or like an encapsulated virus undergoing a transitional crypto-senescence, across decades…or even longer. Yet today’s journalists covering and even now specializing in “terror” must constantly provide a feed of vociferous fuel to the journalistic fire of topical “terror” in order to keep the storyline “hot”. Like a steel plant with an investment need to retain ever-incandescent cauldrons, corporate journalism today fears “going cold” on a topic, even during a genuine hiatus of “pertinent” developments, because it dreads losing its visibility, its “glow”, and watching its journalistic investments become a sunk cost. A steel plant knows that it is financially much, much less expensive to keep the forges “hot’, even during long work stoppages, than to re-fire from cold turkey anew. So, too, will journalists continue to stoke the “terror notion” even if they have to resort to straining the imagination ad absurdum by stretching journalistic jargon:

The acoustic terrorism fostered by boom cars runs counter to the desire of most Americans for peace and quiet. The Census Bureau notes that noise is Americans' No. 1 complaint about their neighborhoods. Noise levels have risen sixfold in major U.S. cities in the past 15 years, and automobiles are the largest source of noise. Peace-loving citizens need to reclaim the streets. Some have already begun: In Chicago, boom cars that can be heard from 75 feet are subject to seizure and their owners may be fined $615. Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh also are cracking down on boom cars. In Papillion, Neb., owners of car stereos that can be heard from 50 feet away can earn themselves three months in jail.

—Ted Reuter, "Today's boom cars are nothing if not acoustic terrorism," Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2002

Our homeland security is violated every time a "boom car" goes by with 150-plus decibels of audio onslaught. You know what that means? Some of our kids are terrorists. Has your peace ever been invaded by a boom car? Of course it has, unless you live in a gated fort. These car stereos can shake your windows, rattle your furniture and roll you out of a deep sleep. Heard for more than a mile, these systems are made to annoy, not to be listened to.

Manufacturers advertise these systems as destructive devices - for instance, Sony's slogan for its Xplod speakers is "disturb the peace." Prestige Stereo boasts that its four-channel, 120-watt amp will "put the over-40 set into cardiac arrest."

These systems disturb the peace and ought not to be allowed in Martin County. They injure the users by inducing chronic fatigue syndrome, and detract other drivers.

Acoustic terrorism merely is a symbol of hypermasculinity and displays sexist behavior with desire for domination. Get smart, lawmakers, give us peace; ban anything over 80 decibels like many cities.

—David Opasik, "Boom-car 'terrorists' disturb our local peace," The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News, May 13, 2002

So we now that we have evolved into outbreaks of acoustic terrorism, surely soon, shall we not, begin to hear also of eruptions of “artistic terrorism” , “culinary terrorism”, “fashion terrorism”, “linguistic terrorism”, “meteorological terrorism”, and more? But will they ever examine the concept of “journalistic terrorism”, the premise of which is unrelenting momentum in propagating terror-based stories? Of course not! But let us remain wary. For if the idiom of terrorism is contorted too vastly, the core commodity of true bestial inhumanity might become cloaked amongst the dribble of t -words. Like the boy who cried “wolf” too often, “Terror!” becomes less appropriately terrifying the more cavalierly it is pimped.