Landmarks come in a variety of shapes and forms

Citgo Sign, Kenmore Square, Boston.

In "Kenmore Sq. sign gets high-tech makeover" the Boston Globe heralds the newly restored Citgo sign, which is to be celebrated sometime today. "The old neon lights that lit up the sign for years (depicted leftmost in the photo) have been replaced by much brighter LEDs, the glowing chips found in digital clocks. Officials say the sign will stand up to the tough New England weather."

Interestingly enough, Congressman Bill Delahunt, in the op-ed "A bright shining sign" in the same issue of the Boston Globe, opines that CITGO's spending $1.5 million on the sign restoration is a possible indication of a thawing in relations between the U.S. and Venezuela. CITGO is owned by the national oil company which is owned by the Government of Venezuela, and President Chavez has distinguished his government through his opposition to U.S. "imperialist-like" policies in Latin America.

Getting back to the local without forgetting our interconnectedness across the globe, I will say that I am a fan of neon and other distinctive aspects of the built environment, but I do think we need to be judicious.

I am particularly against television* and sounds (ambient noise) other than live performance in public spaces (if WMATA proposes putting televisions on subway cars or buses as has been done in Atlanta, I've heard that Dr. Transit will be advocating for widespread civil disobedience--see this entry--"Sure You Can Take the Subway from Times Square to the Wild West, but Can You Watch TV on the Way?"--in the March archive of FrozenTropics). I also hate televisions in restaurants and heartedly support Marc Fisher's Tv-Be-Gone campaign that he wrote about here and here.

(*Jumbotrons, hmm, I'll be writing more about that later.)