Free speech on the freeway

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/4720273.html

Free speech on the freeway

By EYDER PERALTA
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle



snip//

Growing support
The protests start daily at about 5 p.m., when traffic slows to a crawl and drivers have time to look up.

Cook, bearded and bespectacled, always wears a loosely woven river hat with a large Green Party pin. He thinks drivers recognize the headwear, but they probably recognize the curtsy he does every time someone honks.

He doesn't recognize anyone — that's impossible; the Southwest Freeway handles more than 300,000 vehicles each day — and Cook doesn't know if the group's protests are making a difference. The war, he points out, is still going on in Iraq.

People, however, are paying attention. A year ago, Cook was one of those drivers on U.S. 59. He saw Bob Carter, a 75-year-old man who always wears a summer fedora, and joined him the following week on the bridge. Others have found the protesters online at www.paa-tx.org/freeway_blogging.

Slowly the group has grown. In March, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, they gathered enough people to fill six bridges at once.

"Right now," he said, "we're getting about 600 honks an hour." Cook, who has kept track throughout the year, compares that to the 300 to 400 honks an hour he got when he first started protesting on the bridges.

more...

:bounce:

It's a lot of fun!

Hint: Use a roller to paint the cardboard white. Don't bother with
a paint tray, just pour the paint out on the cardboard and roll it out.

http://www.freewayblogger.com/

Put the word "IMPEACH" out on April 28. Write it on the sidewalk,
freeway blog it, print it on labels and stick them on soup cans.

http://www.a28.org/

My chapter of the VFP has been freewayblogging for the last few years in the greater Boston area. The Massachusetts Highway Department has been removing our blogs on a regular basis, while leaving the "Welcome home, Sgt. Lucky" and "Support Our Troops" banners in place.

As we started a lawsuit against the department last fall for discrimination, they changed their policy to remove all freewayblogs from all public highways in the state.

Pretty surprising for a progressive state, eh?

Some of our blogs are here and here.

.. in Massachusetts, we always refered to this as being a "police state". Rhode Island was the place for freedom.
Funny now that we have this "progressive" label. Never could figure it.