Billboards

When I visit the north part of Lincoln, Nebraska I can't help notice the many (many, many) billboards that for a lack of a better words seem, bossy.

"Get a mamogram. DO IT NOW!" screams one billboard on 27th street.

"Turn POSITIVE into a positive!" scolds another (that one at least has a strok carrying a diaper to soften the tone a bit).

"STOP elder abuse! It is AGAINST THE LAW!"

"STOP illegal dumping!" (That one cleverly shows the back end of a cow).

And on, and on with lectures about being a parent to your kids (well, fuck I thought I could just ignore them until they turn 18, and then kick 'em out), getting vaccines, and whatever other heavy-handed lectures the people who rent these billboards think people living in the working class part of town need to have in their faces each time they drive down the street. You'd think the economy we've been living with the last few years would have put to rest the idea that the poor must be stupid (or they wouldn't be poor) but no, it is alive and well, at least in Lincoln.


It can't be that expensive to rent a billboard in North Lincoln, can it? What do you guys think of a billboard along Hwy 6 reading: STOP telling me how to live my life on billboards! STOP IT NOW!

When I moved to Nebraska years ago, someone had spray painted, "JUST STOP TRYING" on an abandoned building on O Street. Were I confronted with a finger-wagging lecture each time I left the house, I just might.