Friday, June 29, 2007

Liberty or License

Perhaps this picture is a counterpoint to my posts of Tuesday and Wednesday from the Pridefest parade. This self-explanatory billboard is being towed around downtown before a baseball game.

"What's that, daddy?" What the hell are you supposed to say to your kid? It's the outdoor equivalent of Viagra ads on TV during, oh, say, a baseball game. We don't need this. It's quite legal in the US but it raises a very old question: you are permitted to do it, but should you do it? Or, to put it another way, what price money? Perhaps I am being naive. If something is allowed, someone will sell it.

Note that the sign invites fans to head east after the game. To us, that means crossing the Mississippi. We don't allow such things in Missouri, In Illinois, anything goes. Look at Chicago politics. The caricature of Illinois politicians is that they are crafty grifters. The broad image of Missouri politicians is that they are backward buttheads. Both of these generalizations may sometimes be true.

How much of this stuff goes on in your society?

Tomorrow: What on earth is a sailor doing here?

3 comments:

Olivier said...

voila une publicité tres visuelle ;o)

Bon Weekend

Ming the Merciless said...

OMG, what a great photo!! HAHAHA!!!

My brother and I had a situation similar to this once. We were talking about Paris Hilton and I said something like she's such a "ho". My 10 year old niece came up to us and said, "Daddy, what's a ho?" I look at him and he looked at me...and we didn't know what to say.

A lot of the smut in NYC has been moved to the industrial neighborhoods. In fact, right beneath the Queensborough Plaza stop in Long Island City, there are at least four strip clubs there.

Bergson said...

You paid the people in reds

The boy did not have enough money