Lately the trend in freewayblogging has been back to the basics: "Save the Planet" and "Save the Earth" signs in bold fonts like Impact, Arial and Cooper Black. While future sociologists may interpret this as a sign of heightened societal urgency - a sort of artistic/semiotic supplication or existential pleading - it could also be that I found a bunch of moving boxes.
I passed by this sign - up for over two weeks now by LAX - on my way to San Francisco. More photos and notes from the trip below the fold:
US 101, San Francisco
Richmond, CA: Directly across from Chevron refinery and offices.
This is one of my favorite spots (above) - a length of fencing forty feet or so above the 580 directly across from the Chevron refinery and corporate offices in Pt. Richmond.
Chevron offices as seen from signhanging spot.
I've kept signs up here, ("Wake Up and Smell the Permafrost," "What happens in the Arctic Doesn't Stay in the Arctic." and "Reflect on an Arctic that doesn't reflect.") in full view of at least one side of the buildings, pretty much constantly for at least the past year. I don't know if they're staying up as a result of corporate citizenship, apathy, or bureaucratic paralysis, but I suspect it's because getting to them requires going through bushes filled with big, scary spiders.
US 101, San Francisco
Berkeley, CA
I liked the baby in this shot in Berkeley and didn't notice it was an anti-abortion billboard until downloading the picture. While a lot of us on the left tend to decry the rhetoric and tactics of the anti-abortion movement, I'm not one of them.
Sure, waving around bloody fetus photos and teaching your kids to scream "Please Mommy Don't Kill Me!" outside abortion clinics might seem a bit creepy, but consider this:
Today, thanks to proselytizing by the religious right and the Republican Party, there are something like 100 million Americans who claim to believe that abortion is the same thing as child murder.
Think about that: 100 Million Americans supposedly convinced that thousands of children - babies even - are being murdered every day and
They
Don't
Do
Shit
About It.
That, in my opinion, is about as creepy as it gets.
How To Make Signs
Interstate 280 Westbound, San Francisco
Interstate 280, San Francisco
Interstate 80 Westbound, El Cerrito
All together I posted 48 signs in the Bay Area and LA over three days, with just over 700 posted so far this year. While there's no guarantee any of it makes any kind of a difference, I do think it makes the place look better.
Interstate 880, Oakland, CA
And it's fun. Seriously... from start to finish, there's practically no part of the process that isn't either relaxing, exciting, inspiring or empowering. (Except maybe whitewashing the cardboard... that part's a bit boring.)
Happy Motoring!
Highway 92, San Mateo