Yes, political lawn signs sprout like dandelions and raise dander all across this nation of ours. And let's consider their design. Bleaaaagh! Sorry . . . I know . . . considering their design can be painful, given the preponderance of redwhite&blue wielded like a hammer and clumsy typography jammed into the space.

But isn't the very ugliness part of their message? Isn't the gesture of a lawn sign in some way to violate the (hopefully) pristine decorum of the lawn and to act as a stick in the eye of neighbors and drivers-by --- the visual equivalent of the shrill shrieking of political talk radio and talk TV?

Isn't the raw design of lawn signs perhaps a semi-conscious statement about the right of every citizen, however tongue-tied, to stand up in the town hall and state an opinion, a personal truth, without the practiced elegance of the professional politician?

For a sampling of lawn signs, dial up a slideshow of this Flickr group.

And can I just say here what a great resource Flickr is for visual research like this? Talk about a visual democracy --- it's grassroots archiving! And, if you haven't discovered it already, I highly recommend looking for the small link in the upper right of a Flickr thumbnail page that creates a Slideshow from the images.