Fremont scuplture gets war-themed update
This statue is a Fremont fixture, it portrays a group of people waiting at a bus stop. It is regularly decorated with birthday/graduation celebrations and other, usually pleasant messages.
I first heard this story on the local news (NBC affiliate). It seems at one point someone decided to remove the hoods and did so. Some bystanders questioned the man on whether he was the artist, and when he answered no, they protested his action, even to the point of chasing him down the street when he took off running (the NBC affiliate played footage of the chase!). The man threw the black hoods into the nearby canal, but someone fished them out and the bystanders put the hoods back on the statue. Their main comment was that they felt the decoration was a right of free speech, and whether they agreed with it was irrelevant.
It should be noted that Fremont is well-known liberal bastion in a relatively liberal city. Where else in the US could you find an authentic statue of Lenin, salvaged from a Czech junkyard after the fall of communism purely for its aesthetic value?
