I heard an ad on the radio this morning while driving to my gym. It said, “Soon out will be a new board game, Ground Zero.”

I thought this was just another reminder that some folks will do anything to make a buck; for example, witness the numerous politicians who run for office just so they can make our treasury their own trough, whether by pork-barrel politics or just plain grab-and-run. [1]

That reminded me of another famous gaffe, though that one was unintentional, or at least I would like to hope so.

Soon after Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June, 1968, all the radio stations in New York City suspended commercial programming for a few days. As I recall it, commercial programming resumed around noon.

Guess what was the first sound I heard in the very first commercial broadcast after Sen. Kennedy’s assassination?

A gun shot! Yes, a gun shot! It sent chills down my spine.

The commercial then went on to talk about a cereal, saying it was “shot through with sugar.”

However, on investigating via Google for “Ground Zero Board Game,” I learned it was another kind of game, a political statement.

See EX-COP’S ZERO RESPECT TOY, from the NY Post’s famed “Page Six,” its gossip section. We learn that the game is the creation of an ex-cop:

Peter Gleason, a former cop and city firefighter who is now a lawyer, is having 10,000 games made to start, and plans to sell them along Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton’s campaign trails.

An ex-NYPD cop has grown so annoyed at the slow progress of rebuilding Ground Zero, he’s sunk $50,000 of his own cash into a cheeky board game that “sheds light on the incompetence” of everyone involved in the project, including Bernie Kerik and former FDNY Commissioner Thomas Von Essen.

“That’s him running with the money he made from [9/11],” said Gleason. Von Essen is made fun of, as is Kerik, who is portrayed in the game “caught with his pants down.” “I’m outraged with regards to how Ground Zero is still a hole,” said Gleason when asked why he created the game. “No one is immune, from the local community boards to the White House.”

Good idea, Mr. Gleason. For your next venture, how about taking a cue from Carmen San Diego? You can call the game:

Where in the world is New Orleans, the New Orleans as it was before Katrina?

Notes:

1. I first spelled “trough” as “troff,” revealing once again that I am a programmer at heart. “See also On speling. Also, every time I have had to type “InstallShield” I have always first typed it as “InstallShields,” but this is an example of a psychological phenomenon called “chaining.”