Final Push

It's gonna be a long day...

More From the USA

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Closing In...

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San Francisco 12/30

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San Rafael/Novato

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair." - H.L. Mencken


"When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose. You know that you are alive. - Chief Seattle

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Sonoma Night

"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong." - John Kenneth Galbraith

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." _ Winston Churchill

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." - Vincent Van Gogh

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Greater Petaluma

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Boxing Day Continued

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure." -Nelson Mandela



"A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood." - George Patton


"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." - John Lennon

"The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think." - Aristotle

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San Diego County

Photos from BEACHBLOGGER









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(Water Heater) Boxing Day

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." - John Stuart Mill

"We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world--or to make it the last." - John F. Kennedy

"I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody." - Lily Tomlin

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." - Mother Teresa

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From the Nation

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Merry Christmas

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." - William James

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did." - Mark Twain




"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone." - Thomas Carlyle

"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means." - Albert Einstein

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12 Water Heater Boxes and a Can of Paint

Orange County, CA

"Endless money forms the sinews of war." - Cicero

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." - Groucho Marx

"Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires." - Lao Tzu

The "W" shown here and two or three pictures above is from a previous impeach sign. The artist was first described here: http://www.nobodydied.com

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Highway 101: Impeachment Alley

"
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind." - Diane Arbus



"The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them." - Alfred North Whitehead

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. " - Kurt Vonnegut

"A revolution is coming - a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough - but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character, we cannot alter its inevitability." - John F. Kennedy

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Massachusetts Dads

In the News

Superhero Dads Video






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Marin County

Don't write your senator.

Don't write your congressperson.


Don't write a letter to your editor.

Just say what you have to say.

And put it where people will read it.

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MySpace

Arsenal of Democracy: Bike Boxes

Go to a bike store and get some bike boxes.


Cut off one side and lay flat.


Paint with roller. (One quick coat with watered down latex is fine.)


Allow to dry. (about ten minutes in the sun)


Cut and/or tape boxes to sizes/shapes desired. For large canvases, tape boxes/flaps together, for smaller ones, cut. One of the beauties of this medium is how little it takes in terms of equipment: with paint, duct tape and a boxcutter you can do pretty much anything.

Bike boxes are made with heavy gauge cardboard and are a good size to work with: big, but not too big. If you're using an overhead projecter, it's easiest to trace the lettering first, then cut the signs. If you don't have an overhead projecter, use your imagination. The important thing is to have dark letters on a light background. So long as your message is large enough and readable, it'll get read.

There are, of course, a variety of ways to post signs so they'll get read, but this one is by far the easiest. It requires no walking, guarantees privacy, and pulls you out of your comfort zone for about 30 seconds. Give it a try if you haven't yet. Make it a resolution.

Ann Arbor

Dept. of Homeland Conspiracy

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Recycling Signs

A friend reported that this sign was still up after 24 hours next to the 101 in Larkspur, adding another 100,000 or so to its viewership.

Here's how it looks from the back.


Before being posted in Larkspur it spent a day or two here in Novato...


And three days here in Berkeley.

Given these durations and the density of traffic, it's not unreasonable to suggest that this one sign's been read over half a million times now. I've found that large signs are often left behind by the people who take them down simply because their bulk makes them difficult to dispose of.


This sign, for example, had already appeared by freeways in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Jose before its final posting here over the I-80 in Berkeley. Not bad for a mattress box...

Sonoma County

"Art is anything you can get away with." - Marshall McLuhan

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." - Bertrand Russell

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." - Edmund Burke

"If you want to see what God thinks of money, just look at all the people He gave it to." - Dorothy Parker



"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Philips

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New Hampshire

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One Thousand Signs

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum." - Adlai Stevenson

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." - Dwight David Eisenhower

"A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future." - Leonard Bernstein

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it." - Thomas Jefferson

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." - Benjamin Franklin

"Fortune favors the brave." - Virgil

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Arsenal of Democracy: Wood

Painting signs on wood has several advantages: they're sturdy, weatherproof, and can be posted literally in one second... just lean it up against something.


Wooden signs are also good for dropping into places where they can't be easily extricated, like these wire cages, or the space between fences and walls.



Wooden pallets are also very useful. You can turn practically any hillside or field into a podium simply by bringing out a pallet, leaning it up against something, and binderclipping your sign to the wood. Chances are the person who takes down the sign won't bother to drag the pallet away as well (particularly if it's a hike...), thus making the pallet re-useable. I put at least half a dozen signs on the same pallet on the Altamont Pass before they finally dragged the pallet away. Then I just brought another pallet.

Here are some other posts concerning freewayblogging with wood:

Working with Wood

Arsenal of Democracy: Crappy Furniture

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More Bay Area

"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato




"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own." - Benjamin Disraeli

"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap." - Ronald Reagan

"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." - Sir Winston Churchill

"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it." - Steven Wright

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12/13 Continued

"Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done." - Frederick Douglass

"Three things cannot long be hidden the sun, the moon, and the truth." -Confucious


""What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children— not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women— not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once." - David Hume

"He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you are a peg, endure the knocking; if you are a mallet, strike." - Moroccan Proverb

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From the Inbox

From Beachblogger

This sign came in from a first-timer in New York. He said he had lots of help painting the sign, but that they sort of drifted away when it came time to hang it. Armed only with bungee cords and duct-tape, our newbie approached the fencing, marching alone into the dragon's jaws of signposting... after seven grueling seconds (the time it takes to bungee a sign to a fence), he was done.

I like his choice of overpasses...



Ann Arbor images brought to you by PsychoMike-o (the voice of Ann Arbor)

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Bay Area 12/13

Painted up a bunch of signs last night and went for a drive. (Can you find the bunny?)



Someone chained the entry to one of my favorite spots, (no doubt because it was one of my favorite spots,) so I hung a sign from the back by throwing it over the fence and nailing it to the top. Here's how it looked from the highway:





I'd just hung this sign and was taking pictures when a Caltrans truck pulled up. They told me I shouldn't hang signs there so I apologized and took it down. They were really nice guys.



Hung some more signs around SF and met up with PT Cruiser who helped me hang this one:

Here's how it looked from the road.

God I love this job.

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Boston

Smedley Butler Brigade








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Chicago

Says it all.

Heroes of the Revolution

Beachblogger


PsychoMike-o







Our Lady of Columbus
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Today's Postings

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams


"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle." - Gautama Buddha

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair." - Winston Churchill

"I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands and say 'This has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can.' " - Ani DiFranco

"The time is always right to do what is right" - Martin Luther King Jr.

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12/10 Impeachment Events

December 10th Impeachment Events

Highway 101 Revisited

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end." - Douglas MacArthur



"What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" - Thomas Jefferson

""The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free." - Henry David Thoreau


""I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq." - Paul Wolfowitz

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North Bay/East Bay

"One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try." -Aristotle

"Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." - Goethe

"To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower... hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour..." - William Blake



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Putting Text In Front of Traffic

The night after the election I went out and got a bunch of these election signs: lightweight, waterproof and blank on one side, they make for perfect freewayblogging material.
Every couple of days I'd spend a few hours painting and then go for a drive putting up signs.

As a result of this little hobby, millions of Bay Area drivers have seen signs calling for the impeachment of the president where they would've normally seen only fences, empty overpasses and trees. I don't know if this has any effect on people or their politics and frankly don't really care: I do this because I think the country looks better with at least some evidence of dissent and that drivers, bombarded by billboards, corporate logos and advertising, should get to see at least one sign that was generated by an individual.


As it stands, the average individual in this country is exposed to thousands of messages per day through television, radio and advertising, almost all of them generated by corporate institutions, and the political debate, to the extent there is any, is provided by a handful of "media personalities" who act at best as corporate shills and at worst as the kind of bloodthirsty warmongering genocidal assholes who cheered us into this war in the first place. It doesn't seem right to let them go unchallenged.



To be honest though, I think the main reason I keep doing this is this: It's a Fuck of a Lot of Fun. Think about it: all I'm doing is spending a couple hours painting signs then driving around looking for strategic places to put them. Believe me, once you get into it, it's one of the greatest games you'll ever play. The rules are simple: put text in front of traffic.

Say whatever it is you want to say and put it in a place where it can't be reached easily by the people who see it. Thanks to the dynamics of the freeways, signs placed fifty feet from traffic can take miles of driving to actually get to, while posting them requires little more than stepping out of your car.

Whatever your sign says, where you put it or how long it lasts, it demonstrates at least one thing: someone felt they had the right and/or obligation to speak out to as many of their fellow citizens as they could. Even though it's been pretty much played out as a phrase, freewayblogging is one thing where the medium truly is the message and it's open to pretty much anyone who can walk, drive, or pick up a paintbrush.

The first thing you've got to do though is this: You've Got To Paint The Signs.


http://www.freewayblogger.com

Ann Arbor is the New Berkeley

And PsychoMike-o is the new Mario Savio.


The Impeach sign above measures over six feet across and was placed on an abandoned billboard facing west from the east side of the highway. Authorities believe the perpetrator struck at night and suspect possible use of ladder technology.



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San Francisco Values: Free Speech

Here are some signs I put up today in San Francisco.

In case you're wondering where the money went.


It's a Christmas Miracle!

Finally: some Good News for Heroin Junkies!

LA Freewayblogger proves conclusively: Men Fake Foreplay!



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Highway 101: Free Speech Zone

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy." - Winston Churchill



"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." - Howard Aiken

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." - Bob Dylan


"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare the truth thou hast, that all may share; be bold, proclaim it everywhere. They only live who dare." - Voltaire

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." - Mahatma Gandhi

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Arsenal of Democracy: The Treehugger

I was very happy to see this picture come in from Ann Arbor. The "Treehugger" is a freewayblog leaned against, nailed to or bungeed to a tree or pole. For ease and versatility of posting, you really can't beat the treehugger: Walk up to tree and lean blog against it, wrap a bungee or two around them and walk away. Try it sometime: it's so simple you'll laugh.


Another thing I like about treehuggers is that there's such a myriad of potential targets that it allows you to concentrate more on strategic placement: what I like to call the "chess" of freewayblogging. I usually opt for cross-posting (i.e.:placement on northbound side facing south) in places where exits
are few and far between. Trees on hillsides, above retaining walls... pretty much anything you can see while driving is fair game. Just pick out a tree that looks difficult to get to and get to it.

From the Inbox

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Bay Area

I like using these "Welcome to" signs when I can. If anything's part of the public domain, these things are.


"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children." - Jimmy Carter


"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" - Mahatma Gandhi



"The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf." - Shakti Gawain



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More from Ann Arbor

Dept. of Homeland Conspiracy










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FathersUnite.org

FathersUnite.org











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More From Yesterday and Today

"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson


"A politician is a man with many orifaces." - Kurdish Saying








"Whatever you can do, or believe you can, begin it." - Goethe


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Some Examples of Duration

Thanks to the magic of television editing, Sean Hannity managed to get the last words into our brief interview: "I think your're just too cheap to buy a billboard." What I would've said, were I not cut off, was "No Sean, I'm too cheap to buy three thousand billboards."

The function of a billboard, after all, is simply to convey a message to people who are driving on the freeway. Freewayblogs perform the same function,but at a dramatically reduced cost.


The point of this project, however, is not simply for me to get my own message out (I've pretty much succeeded in doing that,) but to demonstrate to others how to get their message out.

When we reach a point where the voices of the wealthy need to be heard more in this society, then I'll start buying billboards.



The thing these signs have in common is that they're placed obliquely - high up or off to the side - with no clear or obvious way to reach them. Apart from that, the only way to really assure signduration is through the law of averages: stick up ten of the things and a couple are bound to last.

Some Signs From Today

"We have become a monster in the eyes of the whole world - bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are whores for power and oil with hate and fear in our hearts." -Hunter S. Thompson

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." -Noam Chomsky

"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." - Viktor Frankl

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." - Voltaire


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