Through the Heart and Hinter Lands of America: A Tale Told in Billboards

The middle states of the U.S. are sometimes referred to as the Heartland.  Presumably this makes them important.  Importance notwithstanding,  Nebraska, Missouri, and southern Illinois are not the most exciting states ever to drive through.  I spent a lot of time reading billboards and thinking about them.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures, because usually by the time I notice a billboard, it's too late to fish out my camera.  My poor indefatigable boozers of readers must rely solely on my descriptions.

• "Discover the Truth" with a picture of part of the typical evolution picture with a red line through it. Much as I dislike that typical evolution picture, as it reinforces the belief that evolutionary change is a ladder-like process and the top of the ladder is a white man with a CEO haircut, anyone claiming to have The Truth is, I assume, trying to sell me something.  Usually either theology or a conspiracy theory about scary chemicals in food.    
• "Heaven or Hell, where are you going?"  Nicely reductive and dichotomous cosmology based on fear here. I think I'll let Bill Watterson handle this, as Hobbes has not one, but two geographical responses to the question of going places. 

For the record, I ended that day in Paducah.

• "1 man + 1 woman=marriage."   Let's see, respect, trust, love, mutually agreeable financial arrangements...nah, none of those aspects of marriage are important enough for a billboard.  Much easier to police number and gender of involved parties. 
• "Bring back dignity" With a picture of the Confederate battle flag.  First of all, this was in Missouri, which was never part of the Confederacy, so I'm confused about motivation here.  Also, good to know that dignity, which I always thought a matter of personal merit, is dependent on vexillological statements of nationalistic allegiance.  
• "Why cowboys don't talk much" with a picture of the Wyoming mountains.  In my experience of Wyoming cowboys, they talk quite a lot.  Usually smack.  About people they feel are inferior, which is typically women and the entire population of California. Because eating granola is somehow deeply offensive to cowboys. 

Speaking of Wyoming, the approach to Cheyenne was heralded with billboards informing me Cheyenne possesses 140 restaurants and 2,300 hotel rooms.

In order to not be completely scornful of billboards, I should add that 1 billboard asked me to report instances of human trafficking to a given phone number.  Of course, I'm still not thrilled with that, because the sign offered me no helpful information on what human trafficking in the states is likely to look like, and asking an uneducated populace to report suspicious activity without qualifying education tends to result only in more rampant racial discrimination than before, but it was a gesture, I guess.  Also, it does bring up the point that it's hard to get anything useful, or subtle, onto a billboard, which really calls into question their entire alleged purpose.

On the other hand, I recall billboards in Kampala that stated things such as "would you want someone marrying your child?  Don't do it to someone else's child."  That seems like a good and possibly even convincing use of a billboard.  (And yes, I know that child marriage is bad because a girl is someone, not because she is someone's daughter or sister.  Small steps here.  It's always easier to convince people using an ideology they are already likely to agree with.)

Tell me, have you ever been convinced by a billboard of anything ideological?  Ever?