Thursday, July 14, 2005

Bumper Snickers

I love bumper stickers and pretty much all other ways of easily communicating your deeply held beliefs to the public at large. My all-time fav was a Nader for Prez. sticker that I spotted on the back of Toyota Land Cruiser (the modern, luxury SUV kind - not the old school off-road vehicle kind) back in 2000. I spotted this gem on the back of a shiny new Volvo station wagon today - "Never have so few, taken from so many, for so long".

On the surface, these both seem ironic. I drive a big, gas-guzzlin' SUV but vote for the Green party, I'm mad as hell about economic inequality but I drive a luxury car. There could be a logical explanation for both them, but Occam's ironic bumpersticker razor tells us that when there are multiple explanations for a bumper sticker, the ironic one is usually correct.

As much as I love ironic bumper stickers, my favorites are the totally absurd kind. I spotted this one on a school bus that had been purchased by a private citizen and converted into his personal party wagon: "Support Your Local Police: Beat Yourself Up".

1 comment:

Unknown said...

First of all, I loved the reference to the "Duracell is a better seller brand" commercial - I almost missed it. Second, I think you are giving these people way too much credit. I'm surprised that they managed to use correct spelling and grammar.