Free Speech Advocate
Name: Ann Larabee
Author of the true story of the 19th C terrorist and mass murderer, Alexander "Sandy" Keith, Jr, who was the nephew of Alexander Keith, famous founder of Halifax's Keith Brewery. Keith killed eighty people with a clockwork bomb he planned to put on a passenger ship. It was instantly known as the "crime of the century." The Dynamite Fiend is now available at major bookstores across the country.
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The Washington Post finishes its three-part series on the Al-Quaeda cyberwar today. It's full of hype about the power of the Internet to create global icons out of men like Abu Musab Zarqawi. There is no doubt that modern terrorism, the seeds of which were sown in the mid-nineteenth century, depends on what the eminent media critic Jean Baudrillard has called the "white magic of cinema and the black magic of terrorism." Without publicity, terrorism is useless. In the nineteenth century, it was the expanding new print media that made heroes out of those who made the loudest threats. But there have always been problems with this strategy. Most notably, if a violent person broadcasts his intention, he's easier to anticipate and catch. The nineteenth century Fenians got around this problem by making it all seem like a joke. Whenever there was any mysterious explosion or destruction of life and property, the Fenians would claim responsibility for it. And they would openly tease reporters by pretending to know something, when they often didn't. That made them seem much more powerful than they were. That's the game really, accruing a powerful image. But whether the Internet is particularly unique in this regard remains unproven.
5/14/2003: Toronto Airport
5/15/2003: Train Station, Halifax
5/15/05: Antigonish
5/16/05 Halifax
5/16/05 Keith’s Brewery
5/17/05 Halifax
5/18 Halifax
5/19/05 Halifax
5/19/05 Halifax part 2
5/20/05 Halifax
5/21/05 Waterhouse, Ohio
