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Original Message
"After the midterms..."
Posted by Estee on 11-05-14 at 03:23 PM
LAST EDITED ON 11-05-14 AT 03:44 PM (EST)

It's the morning after Election Day in the States, and I'd like to use this time to take a political stand on a hopefully-bipartisan issue which I'd like to think more than half the nation might consider not killing each other over.

Curb signs.

I hate them.

For those lucky enough to live in countries which don't have them, curb signs work like this:

1. Take an n-frame of sturdy wire. It'll typically be about two feet tall, maybe two and a half wide.
2. Jam the pointy ends into any available ground. Sometimes, this means lawns. Much more often, it represents roadsides in suburban neighborhoods, rural area road shoulders, the strip of grass which runs parallel to many sidewalks... basically, anywhere there's space.
3. Place a slip-on plastic sign over the upper portion of the n-frame. This will advertise your candidate of choice.
4. Never come back.

In the week before Election Day, hundreds of volunteers roam the state, all planting those signs. And after the voting ends -- those volunteers never bother to recover them. The signs remain long after more than half the candidates have departed. The signs can stick around for months -- or rather, portions do. Inevitably, as the weather gets colder, the plastic begins to fray and break. Eventually, it blows away -- leaving the frame, which has been spending its entire existence demonstrating the rusting process.

So here you have a two-foot high piece of thin metal which is coated in rust. and all its friends. Who are everywhere. What would possibly go wrong?

Well... certain areas are not particularly well-lit. Some signs are a little too close to walking areas. Others actually occupy them, as the volunteers look at the worn trails in grass and decide lots of people will see the signs there. And sometimes you aren't paying total attention to where you're going, or foot-sighting wasn't your strength to begin with, maybe you had to step around something in the half-dark because you weren't in the mood to step in and therefore you just stepped into a piece of metal which is just the right height to do some damage. Tripping? Why not? Slicing clothing and maybe the skin underneath? Sure! Did I mention the rust? I'm pretty sure I mentioned the rust. So you fell, your clothes are ruined, you're bleeding, and the wound is infested with rust.

(ETA: And that doesn't even include the times when a prior incident has pulled the sign half out of the ground and left one mostly-horizontal sharp end arcing for the sidewalk. Then you get the times when the whole thing was trampled down to weed-lurking, toe-catching invisibility...)

I'd love to see the statistics on that occurrence for the winter months in the States. I'm sure someone has sued the major political parties over their failure to clean up the garbage. Apparently not for enough, because those signs just keep on showing up, election season after election season. I don't think they've ever changed anyone's mind, not really. At best, they remind people that the vote is coming up and here's a name which they're likely not going to remember. All the signs do is take up space, look ugly, and wreak damage. Mostly that last. And no one ever collects them...

What does election season mean to me? Political gridlock. People hating each other more than usual. Blame placed everywhere except where it belongs. But mostly, bruising, shopping for replacement pieces, and at least one tetanus shot.

So to all of yesterday's winners, congratulations. For the losers, condolences.

Now come back and pick up your @#$%ing trash.

Table of contents
Messages in this discussion
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by dabo on 11-05-14 at 04:05 PM
Well, leave it to the Democratic Party to turn a surefire midterms victory set-up into a total disaster.

This is, of course, the best thing that could have happened for the Clinton 2016 campaign.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Agman2 on 11-05-14 at 04:08 PM
I guess you could say they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!



"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by dabo on 11-05-14 at 04:15 PM

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Agman2 on 11-05-14 at 05:47 PM
wonders what's behind the box with the X on it!


"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by suzzee on 11-05-14 at 04:11 PM
I reuse the stupid things. A piece of poster board folded in half covering the original sign with whatever I'm selling or giving away. A month ago I sold a pontoon boat in 24 hours. I'm looking for a new one and I think I'm just going to have to cross the street for it.

Thanks!


I should be watched....closely.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-05-14 at 04:19 PM
LAST EDITED ON 11-06-14 AT 10:03 AM (EST)

There ought to be a law. But what should the law be? Some suggestions:

1. Make every resident responsible for removing signs on their lawn. Would be easy enough, and would fit with my personal practice of doing this whenever they appear on my lawn. Won’t account for signs on public right of ways, or on the lawn of scofflaws. Still, would reduce greatly the left over signage.

2. Make everyone who loses an election responsible for sign removal. All signs. Would be poetic justice in the eyes of the winners. Might also deter some from running frivolous campaigns. But good luck with this, losers would probably ignore this civic responsibility.

3. Make everyone who wins an election responsible for sign removal. All signs. Again, the losers would see this as justice. But winners, being winners, would just pass a tax to fund city workers. Good for employment, bad for tax payers and anyone thinking that this would be silly.

4. Make all who run responsible for removal of their signage. Would seem like the most fair option. In Pollyannaville. Although losers and winner would ignore this law, each would get a photo op while removing one sign, and keep meticulous records detailing how the others ignored it.

5. Start a Clean City campaign after each election to encourage citizens to pitch in and remove signs on their property as well as signs that they see on right of ways. Get boy scouts, girl scouts, civic organizations, etc. involved. Solicit donations and offer a reward for each sign turned in which would be paid for out of the fund. Then have a signage bonfire with an across the aisle healing celebration with a country music band, face painting, mimes, and bouncy houses. However the EPA would resist this. As well as fire code enforcement. And anyone who hates to see anyone else having fun.

6. The NRA option: target practice. First option, target the sign planters. Second option, if the sign planters do their dirty work in the dead of night while you’re asleep, target the signs. I actually think these options would make for a dramatic upswing in the popularity of the NRA.

I like option 6 because, although there are a few kinks that have to be worked out, it could be done from the comfort of a lawn chair, maybe while sipping a glass of lemonade on a cool autumn day, and the whole family could participate, even the dog. And it would give grumpy old men something to do. That'd be nice.



Tribe puts me in my happy place.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by PepeLePew13 on 11-05-14 at 07:24 PM
LAST EDITED ON 11-05-14 AT 07:24 PM (EST)

We had our municipal elections on October 27th. Half of the signs are still out there on the side of the main roadways, waiting to be picked up - it's the losers that have their signs out there longer, I notice.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by cahaya on 11-06-14 at 04:14 AM
I see Red. Everywhere. Even in my supposedly librul district.

It's like the Commie Scare all over again.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-06-14 at 10:01 AM
Just drink the Koolaid.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-06-14 at 10:34 AM
LAST EDITED ON 11-06-14 AT 10:35 AM (EST)

And, BTW, what is this term "Bipartisan" to which you refer?

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by bondt007 on 11-06-14 at 09:56 PM
It started with "get in the back seat and shut up..."


>Issued by "Q" and RollDdice

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Agman2 on 11-07-14 at 02:17 AM

I like the way you worded that lol


Alarmingly masterful tribal creation

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-07-14 at 09:26 AM
Not all of us speak those foreign languages.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Estee on 11-07-14 at 01:53 PM
So. Poison, radiation, or knife?
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by snidget on 11-06-14 at 10:37 AM
I seem to recall one morning drive time radio personality getting in trouble over the signs.

He had a contest and whoever brought the most signs got concert tickets or some such. Apparently too many that people were planning on saving to sell on Ebay at some future date got taken from people's yards.

I think a dollar per day per sign fine to the candidate should help with clean up. Although it depends on how much it costs to send someone out to count them every day.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by dabo on 11-12-14 at 02:10 PM
You can sell them on Ebay? Let me get this straight, people will pay actual money for those things?

That explains the kid who roams our neighborhood at night during campaign season swiping signs out of yards. You should all get one of those.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kidflash212 on 11-06-14 at 01:26 PM
Can we add an addendum that prohibits telephone calls? in the days leading up to the election, my answering machine was full of messages from Rob Astorino and Grace Meng.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-06-14 at 02:20 PM
Caller ID. The greatest invention since the fingernail clipper.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kidflash212 on 11-06-14 at 02:34 PM
unfortunately, it usually says "Private Caller" or just "New York, NY" on the ID.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-06-14 at 04:18 PM
Those are both good clues. As is "Unidentified Caller". Or an ID that uses a south Florida area code.

Another great clue is if you do happen to answer and there is a noticeable pause between when you say "Hello" and when they begin to speak. That is evidence that the call was made by an automatic robo-caller that is alerting someone on their end to pick up because they have a live fish (yeah, yuk yuk - I know), you, on the line. I think most people are onto this by now.

In the past I have entered a pesky repeat caller's phone number (one that doesn't identify with a name, just the number) into the computer search line, and usually (100% of the time so far, actually) I get a forum with discussions about others who have also been plagued by calls from the same number. There is a way to get selected numbers on a caller rejection list.

Any call that doesn't include a name doesn't get an answer by me.

I have a sister that has somehow signed up to be hidden from caller ID. She's not shady, and there is no logical (that I can think of) reason for her to be hidden, she just has reverse upside down thinking that this is protection from anyone that she deliberately calls. (WTF?). As one might guess, she's an academic. Not a pollster, or a Viagra sales person, or a pigeon drop specialist. Or even a normally logical person. An academic.

So, with the one exception of people who are seriously misinformed about telephone privacy, there is no one I want to speak to that doesn't identify themselves before I answer.

I've asked my sister to either change her calling ID (predictably, she says she doesn't know how – did I mention that she’s an academic?) or just email/text me.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Estee on 11-06-14 at 04:02 PM
I got a call from Michael Grimm, but I'm pretty sure he was just looking to set up an alibi.
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-06-14 at 04:30 PM
Obviously, he was thanking you for your presumed vote.

So either he was misinformed, or you had a spasm in the voting booth at a polling station that you entered by mistake and who had another "Estee" registered to vote there who probably raised a fuss when they wouldn't let her vote twice. Or being New York, maybe that voting twice for a felon was de rigueur.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-07-14 at 09:34 AM
LAST EDITED ON 11-07-14 AT 12:10 PM (EST)

One idea that might work to some degree is to set up a web page or a face book page, and post pictures of the abandoned signs as well as sign removal statistics (with smiling campaign pictures) of each candidate.

Always available for the next election.

I assume this is pretty much universal, but around here the local candidates that are the worst. I say this even though I still see Bush vs Gore bumper stickers once in a while. I think that's just because the Bush people used a superior “till the end of time” adhesive.

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Agman2 on 11-07-14 at 11:49 AM

"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by kingfish on 11-12-14 at 11:13 AM
LAST EDITED ON 11-12-14 AT 02:29 PM (EST)

I happened to notice that all the election related signage along my normal routes (to work, running errands, etc.) has been removed.

I'm quite sure that the local candidates read this thread and were shamed into cleaning up after themselves.

Obviously.

Be proud.

"I approve of this message!"
Posted by moonbaby on 11-12-14 at 02:43 PM
"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by jbug on 11-13-14 at 09:10 PM
We always collect a few to use for targets. Yea, we shoot real bullets at them

In our county the candidates have a week I think to remove them. Not sure what the punishment is if they don't but they are usually pretty much gone in a few days.


"RE: After the midterms..."
Posted by Round Robin on 11-22-14 at 04:37 AM
In PA I think you have 10 days to remove signs, and you can be fined for any not removed. The vast majority do get removed, especially in local elections. When I have worked for local candidates, I pulled any of our signs I could find within a day or 2 after the election and took them to a local garage where the mechanics supported the same candidates. I've never heard of anybody actually getting fined, but very few signs are left behind after an election.