Beth ydy, Josef?

A while back I commented on the similarities between Massachusetts' diehard anti-gay activists and the late Joseph Mlot-Mroz. Well, I have to recant, partly. Joseph may have been crazy, but he wasn't stupid. He did his own signs. He usually managed to get as much text on them as there is in the Manhattan phone book, but it only cost him a few coins for markers and cardboard to avoid getting his message out clearly.

As I drove home today, eastbound on the Mass Pike, I spotted two small planes towing advertising banners. Struggling against the headwind, they were flying almost directly over the westbound lane, thus invisible to it. That's the chief Pike audience at that time of day. Worse, the messages were half in reverse type against a red background, making the reverse half virtually unreadable even in the eastbound lane.

Curiosity overcame my survival instincts for a second or two, and I ducked down long enough to discover it was none but our right-wing friends, apparently attacking the SJC.

Apparently they haven't grasped the lesson that Mlot-Mroz learnt 40 years ago: when you're engaged in a lost cause, cut your overhead. The world of marketing is full of people eager to part fools from their money, and it seems they were parted with a fair-sized chunk by these aerial marketers.

Cab-top advertising on the airport tunnel routes is not quite as expensive but even less visible most of the time. Maybe they should try that next. If that doesn't work they could buy space on the P-town ferry.