by firstimer » Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:29 pm
Not quite computer related but,<br><br>I'll add a similar experience with the ADL. Without the long story of how I ended up working for a giant Japanese company at the address of 1 Times Square, New York City, I will start with a description of my job. I was a Producer and Editor of programming and interstitial for a giant TV. Overlooking Times Square. I worked from early '93 to late '94. this was probably spring of '94 it was still cold outside.<br><br>The JDL came to us with a promo that they wanted to buy adtime for. The perparations started normally, we negotiated a package of time that suited their budget and timeframe. A contract was signed and the promo was Fedexed to us. Upon arrival of the tape, my superiors were aghast. It was one of those commercials that I think everybody has seen with Israeli's getting blown up by palestinians, with big bold text proclaiming the statistics of atrocities in the video footage. The wrapup was about donations and a 1-800 number. My Bosses were very conservative with stuff like that. I believe they had been burned before and punished by their Japanese superiors.<br><br>It was evident that the tape couldn't even be edited to be airable according to the standards of that giant Japanese company. Lots of phone calls, "dub the tape and get it to Tokyo tonight!" Finally we got word that we would be backed for refusing to air it.<br><br>At this point I was intrigued by the power of the footage and the political nature of the message. I thought,USA news doesn't tell us this stuff, I guess nobody gets to see it. Later, for me, the ideas I absorbed from that tape would be balanced by the palestinian point of view and others.<br><br>We told them (at nearly the last minute) that the tape wouldn't air. It took that long to work out the legal angle, and confirm Tokyo's support. I can't describe the effect of the anger project back at us for the next few weeks. Legal hassles, I think there might have even been press on this. IN NYC of course it would start out something like, "Japanese Company Censors Charity"<br><br>We were clearly not obligated to air it, due to the wording contract and the nature of the unusual FCC interpretation of the TV as a sign with blinking lights and not a Broadcast TV station.<br><br>That was when the bomb threats and threatening letters and phone calls poured in. We had other work to do including live events in the square that would put up on the screen.<br><br>They hired private security, and had police presence but live events were still cancelled for fear of liability.<br><br>Normally I worked the late shift 3-11pm. I worked alone up there preparing the 7 laserdisk playback machines for the next month of programming and editing spots for our clients.<br><br>They had security up there with me, but when I left I was on my own. One night I was picked up by a cab right in front, lucky me, at 11 on a weekday sometimes I had to walk to port authority to get a cab.<br><br>The driver was orthodox or Hasid (no hat but the curls were unfurled), he was very friendly for a cab driver. He asked me what I did for a living, with my answer I started to feel I made a mistake. He was very interested in technology and he was a musician, he really wanted to hook up with me to play music. Hasid's and the Orthodox don't normally strike up such forward conversations with non-Jews. I wondered if he was gay or something. I also worried that he was going to find out where I lived, I changed the dropoff point, but realized it was too late by the way he smirked. He said "OK" and dropped me off, in a day or two I had forgotten about it and life went on.<br><br>After Sept 11 I began voraciously studying geopolitics and reading recently liberated history. I ran into a couple of Victor Ostrovsky's books and I believe the first one had a paragraph that explained why a taxi driver makes a great cover for intelligence gathering. That taxi ride that I had forgotten for 10 years bubbled to the surface and was illuminated by a different context. I was pretty sure at that point that I was cased. Nothing has ever happened since then, until October this year. That's another story for another day.<br><br><br>firstimer<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
