Turner Broadcasting did indeed step up to the plate. Both our daily papers are reporting a $2,000,000.00 settlement, with somewhat differing details.
Both articles quote a $2,000,000.00 settlement from Turner Broadcasting,. That $1,000,000.00 was “out of pocket response costs”, and the other $1,000,000.00 is “good will money”.
No word yet on the fate of Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, other then that AG Coakley is negotiating with their attorneys. When I hear, as one of their attorneys is a close friend and can post, I will do so.
Please share widely!
the two flunkies? Seems to me that firm is highly responsible yet managing to stay out of the spotlight (still paying the flunkies to deflect attention?)?
The total payment was to be $300.00, not even hourly, for putting up 40 lite brite type objects.
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As to “the advertising firm” you and I have no way to know whether the settlement from Turner negotiated by Martha Coakley includes any contribution from Interference Advertising, do we?
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Also, if it is 100% above the actual out of pocket costs of the various units of government who responded, I would say that Peter Berdovsky and his friend were good for economic development.
I did not intend to insult the two men with the term “flunky”. If the two men hired by the ad firm were allowed to be dropped into the spotlight by their employer, who hasn’t even paid them (as per your post), and who will pay them a pittance no less, it is fair to say they were flunkies.
Greetings. I understood “flunky” to be a kind of groveling servant. See: flunky as opposed to merely a poor person set up by a rich persons to take heat or do the dirty work.
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There may be a local connocative meaning that fits your use that, as a non-native to Boston, and non-native speaker to English would not occur to me. I tend to go to dictionaries when this sort of thing occurs – and here the derivation fits the denotation which I knew.
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Language is funny that way, and mis communication is pretty common, I think, for that reason.
Don’t apologize for being a non-native speaker. There is plenty of miscommunication among native speakers too, of any language I’ll wager, when it comes to electronic debate. Until we can convey body language and tone in text, it’s bound to happen. I suppose I could have chosen a better term, anyway. “Dupe” or “chump” perhaps? No term in this genra will be especially flattering, though, that is for sure.
The princely $300.00 came in the mail. I hope they made a copy, color, of the check.
Fall guys?
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I agree that they are not flunkies, but I understood what was meant by the use of the term.
Berdovsky and Stevens should get off with a fine for littering or some other such thing. The marketing firm that sent them on this mission for chump change, received photos of the locations with the lite brite battery duct tape wire devices, and thought this was a wonderful way to stick unpermitted advertising on the support structures for freeway overpasses… WHEN DO I GET TO SEE THOSE TURKEYS IN HANDCUFFS?!?
I’d like to see an accounting of how much extra money was spent. I mean, don’t we pay all those bomb squad people the same thing whether they are driving to a bomb scare or driving to Dunkin Donuts? No doubt there were some officers that put in overtime, and no doubt extra gas was burned, the bomb squad used up some of their dynamite, etc. I can’t see that as being more than a few thousand bucks, and budgeted in anyhow. They’d have found some way to burn that money if there was any left over at the end of the year, probably on some equally annoying practice simulation. I think maybe they just decided at some point in the day, or perhaps even in advance, to use this as a practice, a readiness test, a preperation. We get a real good practice run, two million bucks, and they get publicity for ATHF and probably more.
noting that the idea of Turner shelling out twice the actual expenses as “good will money” was, I believe, first floated here!
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if the holdup with the two artists were simply Coakley’s insistence that they plead guilty to something they are not in fact guilty of, merely to save her face.
Peter cannot afford to plead guilty – that is why he is the one with the top flight [Walter Princehttp://www.plgt.com/…} a former US District Attorney and partner at Prince, Lobel, Glovesky & Tye.
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Why? Well deportation to Byelorussia…not healthy given he got a gun shoved in his face because “someone” did not like his poetry, back when he was a high school student.
Occupants are one slightly rumpled bureaucrat, seated at large wooden desk w’ “City of Boston: Love that Dirty Water” plaque, and two CEO’s from Turner Broadcasting, seated in front of desk.
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TURNER CEO #1: Ok, how much does our company have to pay so that we, personally, do not get arrested?
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RUMPLED CITY BUREAUCRAT: Make me an offer.
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CEO’s exchange glances.
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TURNER CEO: #2 Two million.
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RUMPLED CITY BUREAUCRAT: Takes long puff of cigar; exhales contentedly. Deal.
RUMPLED CITY BUREAUCRAT #1: We should overreact more often.
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RUMPLED CITY BUREAUCRAT #2: Yeah…I though I saw some wires sticking out of the side of that suspicious huge Citgo sign…bomb squad?
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RUMPLED CITY BUREAUCRAT #1: Ohhhh yeah.
Later that evening
Turner CEO gets a visit from two men in sunglasses presenting him with a 3 million dollar wire transfer from a Swiss bank account thanking him for his participation in the news bandwidth occupation project.
http://www.scl.cc/ho…
$2 million would have bought about 20 seconds of ad time during the superbowl. For $2 million in Boston, Turner and the ATHF TV show and movie got way way way more exposure.
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I do think this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion, and I don’t think the ‘artists’ deservie more than a littering charge (maybe a small fine for violating the rules of the outdoor advertising board?).
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But, in the grand scheme of the advertising world, Turner is getting a great deal out of this!
Honestly, I wish Turner and cohorts had flipped the bird to our homegrown chicken littles as readily as the litebrite cartoon characters did. Clearly, the Gov and the AG got sucked into this foolishness by our dim bulb mayor and our laughable local “homeland security” hack force (THAT”s who they should be demanding an apology from), and now have to try and maintain their dignity.
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Remember, Menino is the guy who cited “security concerns” when locking activists and protesters into a chain link and barbed wire cage, as well as turning downtown Boston into a deserted, commercial vacuum during the last Democratic National Convention. Welcome to the cradle of liberty! Oh yeah, let’s not forget those hilarious “evacuation route” signs now dotting the city that lead the anxious population to… nowhere.
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Honestly, can’t we elect a real mayor, a mayor capable of formulating coherent policies and speaking in complete sentences? I am tired of getting letters and e-mails from around the country (other countries, too!) making fun of my hometown.
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It’s time for Boston to elect a grown-up!
from today’s Globe:
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Translation:
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“See! I told you I didn’t overract. Turner said so. Tell ’em, Turner, tell ’em. C’mon!
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I’d love to see a video of the news conference overlayed with a laugh track.
I would have prosecuted the perpetrators (not the minions, the perpetrators) for at least disturbing the peace.