Akademik

(uh.KOO.stik TER.ur.iz.um)

n.

The disturbance of the peace caused by excessively loud noise.

— acoustic terrorist n.

Our homeland security is violated every time a "boom car" goes by with 150-plus decibels of audio onslaught. You know what that means? Some of our kids are terrorists. Has your peace ever been invaded by a boom car? Of course it has, unless you live in a gated fort. These car stereos can shake your windows, rattle your furniture and roll you out of a deep sleep. Heard for more than a mile, these systems are made to annoy, not to be listened to.

Manufacturers advertise these systems as destructive devices - for instance, Sony's slogan for its Xplod speakers is "disturb the peace." Prestige Stereo boasts that its four-channel, 120-watt amp will "put the over-40 set into cardiac arrest."

These systems disturb the peace and ought not to be allowed in Martin County. They injure the users by inducing chronic fatigue syndrome, and detract other drivers.

Acoustic terrorism merely is a symbol of hypermasculinity and displays sexist behavior with desire for domination. Get smart, lawmakers, give us peace; ban anything over 80 decibels like many cities.

— David Opasik, "Boom-car 'terrorists' disturb our local peace," The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News, May 13, 2002

What saddens me most is that there are 250,000 or more of us who, every day of our lives, exist with this nails-on-the-blackboard, ready-to-scream, sleep-robbing, acoustic terrorism.

With the annual number of flights at Logan Airport approaching one-third of 1 million and continuing to grow at a very rapid pace, some of us live in "noise hell."

— Bernice C. Mader, "The Very Real Threat of acoustic terrorism," The Boston Globe, July 18, 2000

You would think that, in these post-9/11 times, people would be careful where they slapped the "terrorism" label, but that's not the case when it comes to "boom cars." They seem to bring out the rage in people, as evidenced by the call to arms in the above citation. The earliest citation, however, has nothing to do with boom cars.