What's so "progressive" about billboards?

Portland Progressives may wonder what KPOJ-AM620, “Portland’s Progressive Radio Station,” is doing slathering its name on billboards around the city.

It so happens that the billboards and the radio station are owned by the same corporation, Clear Channel. That’s the very same outfit suing the city to make dozens of billboards even bigger.

I suggested here yesterday that, as taxpayers, we might save ourselves and our City big bucks if we snatch the billboard issue from the lawyers and publicly boycott Clear Channel advertisers who blight our landscape.

If you boycott KPOJ (with its ubiquitous three monkeys ad), you get a two-fer. You end up boycotting Clear Channel twice—as the station owner and as the billboard owner.

Ah, the perils of being a media conglomerate!

The downside: You have to forgo the insights and verve of talker Thom Hartmann for the duration…. Then again, he might just want to chat about his corporate "parent's" suing his adopted city.

How about it, Thom? Any thoughts about protecting "the Commons" from the folks who sign your check?

By the way, if you visit the Clear Channel site for buying billboard space in Portland you are treated some fascinating market statistics and a idyllic photo of a Portland notably and ironically unblighted by billboards.