From http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_62685558
I don't know about y'all but I think it's time we started ripping those fuckers out of the ground. Only the MADD one's are legally sanctioned and most of them are left alone by the various municipalities only because of unwritten, unnoficial policy.Some area residents attribute the increasing appearance of such memorials in the city, however, to the erection of the first Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) memorial cross in south Austin in 1984. Jennifer Solter, a retired nurse originally from Manitoba, brought the handcrafted, white wooden cross to Austin three years after founding the Heart of Texas chapter of MADD in 1981 after her daughter, Sara, died in an alcohol-related auto accident earlier that year. Sara's cross established the pattern for all MADD crosses in the Austin area. Crosses erected through the Heart of Texas MADD chapter are white, two-foot high structures bearing a red plastic plaque at the crosspiece (Fig. 1). Each plaque bears the accident victim's name, and dates of birth and death in the following manner:
[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
IN LOVING MEMORY OF SARA JAYNE SOLTER BORN 10/20/61 & KILLED AT THIS
LOCATION 8/14/81 BY A DRUNK DRIVER
The Heart of Texas MADD chapter chose to use the cross as an official symbol, Jennifer said, because "the cross would call attention to a death." Indeed, in Texas, roadside crosses are so commonplace, and knowledge of MADD so widespread, that although not all North American MADD chapters sponsor a roadside cross memorialisation programme, passers-by often associate all such roadside memorials with drunk driving incidents.
So in case you are asking, "how can you be so cold as to dismantle a memorial?" I say all the more reason. If it were my child I wouldn't want my child used as a political symbol for some neoprohibitionist group to take away our rights. I think a greater good would be served.
Besides I'm tired of looking at the things. And I'm tired them being used to manipulate public opinion. like the quote says, most of them aren't even MADD crosses but everyone thinks they are, which furthers public misconceptions.
What law would anyone be breaking by removing them? People go around and remove political signs all the time. What the fuck can they do? They're not city property. They aren't usually the property of the owners of whatever land they are on (usually a gas station median).
And if there is some sort of minor law being broken, fuck it! I say it's time for a little mischief in order to fight MADD's influence. So if you see them, why not rip them up and put 'em in a ditch somewhere....or better yet replace them with crosses that say
So who's got a pickup truck and a shovel?IN LOVING MEMORY OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION BORN 9/17/1787 & KILLED AT THIS LOCATION 1983 BY MADD
