MBTA

(Editors note: this is about the Boston public transport system, the MBTA. They're known for two things. A) Their astounding budgetary incompetence. B) Their continuous announcements that you should be afraid. Their main announcement on the subject is called the "see something, say something" program. I sent this letter to them. They actually required my name and email addy, so I may catch flak. We'll see.)

I was writing to congratulate you.

I was ecstatic when I didn't hear them. It made my commute so much more bearable. Was it a sign that the MBTA had new blood? Really was changing direction? I almost wrote to congratulate you then, but I decided to give you a week. That week was up today.

And you blew it.

Today I heard them again. Oozing out of the speakers like wet maggots. Had I just been lucky for the week? Usually, it surrounds me, echoing from the walls, seven or eight times a day. Terror propaganda.

I call it your "hear something, fear something" campaign. Normally, I would call it security theater. Except this isn't security theater. It's insecurity theater. Your painfully transparent and pointless announcements are simply the vapid handwaving of people that clutch at every political crutch and "opportunity" your scabby little hands can get at.

The worst part is that your fearmongering is so amateurish. I strongly recommend leaving fearmongering to the masters: you simply don't have the talent for it. There are plenty of other things on your plate, anyway. There's no reason to continuously blather on about something that is, statistically, less likely than getting run over by one of your buses. Twice. In one day.

Please stop your terror propaganda. It's pathetic and infuriating.